Maggots, Vermin, Ashes, Dust
by Daystar Searcher
Summary: What if it had taken Goren longer to figure out it was Declan? Inspired by raz0rgirl's LJ observation that Gage is a B/A shipper. Written because I am just that much of a creeper.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Dick Wolf has not seen fit to give me Goren and Eames. I don't know why, I wasn't going to do anything with them besides lock them in a room with me and a lot of chocolate syrup…oh. Right.**

**A.N.: Title is from the lyrics of the **_**Repo! The Genetic Opera **_**song "Things You See in a Graveyard." Already you can tell what a happy story this will be.**

She was back.

She was back and it was like she never left, the searing pain in her wrists and shoulders and the maddening sweat-trickle down her arms and how she could hear her every breath so loud it echoed _(dizzy)_ in her head _maybe I never did leave, maybe this whole thing these two years all the after was a dream a hallucination_ and that thought was a hand crushing her throat, bile rising with the burning storm of her panic and it all smothered trapped inside her, crushed down inside her skin by the gag and the blindfold _I have to wake up I have to wake up I have to wake up_

_(wake up)_

But it was different.

No wet hacking, no whimpering baby-talk pleas, no

_mmph mmph no no aaaaa ooo mmaaa--mommy plll aaaaaaaa aaa no--_

rustling of the plastic curtain like dead skin on rusted rings _(kshkl kshkl kshkl_

_Kshlskhlskl---)_

Just a scraping.

Knife against stone.

Shikt! Shikt! Shikt!

A dry little cruel laugh of a sound.

It wasn't the nightmare.

Shikt! Shikt! _(stupid little Eames, this is what you get, stupid little bitch) _Shikt!

Over and over and over.

_(this is the real nightmare)_

This was real.

_What, did someone tape a 'kidnap me' sign to my back or something?_ and she clung to this thought, because it was a good thought, a sane/calm/smart/funny/tough thought, an _Eames _thought, and most important of all it was a thought that was not _ohmygodimgonnadieimgonnadieimgonnadie--_

Huuuh-huh. Huuuuh-huh. Breathing. Heavy. In-out in-out closer closer and louder. Huh-huh. Huuuuh-huh. Huh-huuuuh.

A wheezing, impatient chuckle. Familiar

_(familiar)_

Cold! The flat of the blade stroked her cheek, but Eames was prepared and bit her lip against her gasp, not that it mattered because the gag--slash! And it was gone, and that was different too--

(trickle trickle blood down her cheek where the edge grazed her and every molecule of it makes a sticky desperate sound)

The icy metal of the knife was warming to her flesh. It teased at the edge of her mouth, seeking entrance, and she pressed her lips shut because if she _was _going to die she'd be damned if she was going to make it easy and go down without a fight and she would _not _cry, _she would not cry, shewouldNOTcry--_

The chuckle again. Suddenly the blade jerked up, sliced through her blindfold--another flash of pain bright and quick--which fell away. And--

"Ta da!" Clapped his hands together and then spread them wide, eyes bright and eyebrows waggling, grinning like he'd unveiled a double chocolate birthday cake with extra frosting.

Of course. Familiar.

_(of or pertaining to the family)_

Declan.


	2. Chapter 2

"Well?" he said, and he looked almost peeved. "Aren't you going to say _something_?"

She laughed.

She didn't mean to, didn't plan to, but her mouth popped open and it burst out. Just one at first, but that one unlocked something, snapped something and suddenly so many laughs were bursting out, hacking barking choking mad laughs tumbling bubbling scrambling spilling screaming out her mouth erupting showering forth—it was as though something had snagged inside her and was being yanked out, and the laughs came with it, yank yankyankyank faster and faster and faster they pelted past her lips and she knew she should stop she was trying to stop she had to stop but she couldn't stop and the laughing just kept getting louderlouderlouderLOUDER and SHE COULDN'T STOP IT oh god

_(OHGODOHGODOHGOD)_

Oh God she was trying so hard to stop to press it push it down but her body wasn't listening anymore her body was jerking up and down and sideways back and forth convulsing seizing spasming possessed by the laughter and she was fucking terrified fucking scared to death and the laughter slammed her through the air and made the wire around her wrists bite _(slice!) _with every thrust _updownslice! Updownslice! UpdownSLICE! _of her body as the laughter rocketed through her—

_I am going to die here. I am going to die. Here. _

_This is going to kill Bobby._

_Oh God._

--and Declan Gage was going to carve her up and she was going to scream and bleed and die and rot and she couldn't stop laughing because it was just goddamn fucking _hilarious_, it was a fucking _vaudeville routine_, it was a motherfucking _freakshow—_

"This is just—so touching," she managed to choke out, because fuck it, she was dead anyway, and this is how she was going to go: "I'm just so, so—honored—to be part of, of, of, this new Gage family tradition—" and oh hell, she was giggling now, horror movie psycho demon-child giggles slicing through her brain and her spinal cord and setting her eyes and fingertips on fire—"But I just can't help but feel that this is probably not what the therapist meant when she said that, that you and Jo should find something to share—" she was laughing so hard her eyes were watering, hard and shrill hyena almost-shrieking _(I don't laugh like that I don't laugh like that stop it _stop_ it STOPIT) _and she didn't want to stop now because if she stopped she was going to scream and scream and scream _(scream) _and _(he's going to cut you slice you dice you and smile while you scream)_—"It's just a pity there aren't any other family members to, to, share this beautiful tradition with, it could be an annual thing, you know: dinner, a show, kidnap Alex Eames—"

Declan had been thrown by the initial outburst—hell, he had almost leapt backwards when the first laugh shot forth—but he had recovered quickly, and now surveyed her as though he were an entomologist and she was a particularly rare and fascinating beetle he had pinned in place beneath his magnifying glass.

"Hmm. Interesting." He snapped his fingers. "Theory! Panic attack caused by sudden shock after an indeterminate period of chronic stress. Outward manifestations vary with individual personalities." He gave a satisfied little grunt. "Yes, yes. Definite chronic stress. You comported yourself much better when my daughter kidnapped you. Could you—do you have an approximate timeline on the stress? It could be helpful."

The laughter had diminished in volume to low-level chuckling, but she couldn't quench it entirely. "I'm not—I'm not—particularly disposed to helpfulness right now."

Declan harrumphed, doing his dismissive little hand wave as he turned away. "No matter, no matter. Hmm…theory: varying levels for the past two years—you went back to work too soon, fouled up things pretty good—stubborn, stubborn—of course, that's one of the things that Bobby loves about you, so we'll have to try to keep that intact—and the sense of humor too, Bobby always admired humor in other people, couldn't tell a joke to save his life—"

He wheeled about suddenly. "Not that I'm completely absolving Bobby, mind you!" He shook his head fiercely. "Stupid boy, brilliant but stupid. What's the quote? 'It seemed to him that in discovering new vistas of intelligence, he had also uncovered vast and—and—' what was it? Uh…oh, yes: 'vast and hitherto unexplored pockets of stupidity.'" Declan chuckled. "Bobby Goren to a T. Stupid! Refusing to go after what he needs. Needs to be pushed! Needs to be motivated! Still, can't blame him—it's all in the home environment: the self-denial, the putting of others' perceived needs before his own—a little less dead weight, and ha! They think he's good now—"

And just like that, Eames found that she couldn't laugh if she tried. There was no air in the room. "You killed Frank."

"Oh, give the girl a medal!" he snapped irritably. "Or don't." He suddenly looked…eager. Like a puppy who'd seen a leash or a doggie treat headed his way. "Want to play, Eames? Not as good as Bobby, but--let's, let's play. It's more complicated. Bobby needed a puzzle. Needed to be engaged. Can you guess? Play."

Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her ears."You partnered with Nicole…_she_ killed Frank and Donny and you killed her—"

"_Donny_?!" Gage looked appalled. "God's sake, why would I hurt _Donny_? He's done nothing to hurt Bobby, to drag him down. I'm just cutting dead weight, dead wood—"

"And I'm the last little twig." The words were leaden on her tongue, tinny in her ears.

Declan's head snapped back to focus his eyes on her. "Good God. Are you always this obtuse?" He flapped his hand as though trying to slap the stupidity from the air. "Course you are. Everyone is—always, everywhere—everything, I always have to do everything. Explain everything. It's so—it's so—what the word? Irritating. I'm not going to kill you. Much more important plans for you."

_Oh goody_, Eames wanted to say. _Do tell me more_. But all of a sudden her mouth was to dry to scrape up a single syllable.

"Another layer for his puzzle of course, that too. To find you. But also, the burdens have to go. He can't go on with them, they'll, they'll destroy him. But he's so tied to them, despite everything—it's so infantile! Theory: his mother's illness froze his emotional growth at a juvenile stage. He's tied to them, and now that they're gone, he's going to need a rock, something to, to hold on to, to hold him steady. To keep him whole and sane. To love him. He loves you, you know. Did you ever watch the television program _The X-Files?_" He doesn't wait for her to reply. "Course you did. Everyone did. Classic nineties show. Laughable science, but…" he shrugged. "Mulder and Scully. Sexual tension like you wouldn't believe. Ridiculous that they didn't get together sooner."

_I'm hanging from a hook in the ceiling, listening to my partner's former mentor pontificate on the merits of _The X-Files. _This has got to be a punchline for fucking _something.

_What are they going to tell the kid about where Aunt Alex went? Oh shit, I'm going to miss his birthday party. And I had to miss the last one for a case too._

_I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for every birthday party I'm going to miss. _

"--theory!" Declan was saying. "Scully's fault. Strong women, they put up barriers, and if a man's a gentleman, then,well—" Again with the hand flapping. "Nothing to do but sit and stew, right? Eh? Cupid, ah, he's foiled. Everyone's doomed. Wrong! Barriers can be broken down, it's simple once you have a handle for the, the psychology—"

_(no)_

"And Bobby, Bobby does not do well with strong, he respects strong, he, he, admires strong but he does so much better with the vulnerable, the—damaged. Theory: it's the formative experience of having to care for so many damaged people in his own family, it made him an expert while simultaneously, uh, destroying his confidence for a relationship role that was not largely a caretaker. You're too strong—even when you're not, too good at hiding—women! Always hiding! What did Oscar Wilde say? Doesn't matter. Bobby's got to see that you can be hurt so he can fix you—"

_(NO)_

"—he'll never make a move like this. Just stay lonely. By himself. With you but not _with_ you, operating at less than optimum efficiency. Ridiculous! Stupid boy. Needs someone to do it for him. So—" He spread his hands wide. "Ta da! Time to step up to the plate. And make him, make him see. How much you need him."

_(nononononononono)_

"Of course you've always needed him, but Bobby! Can't see the hand in front of his face if you don't punch him in the, in the nose with it. He knows he needs you, but he won't accept that you need him unless we make it obvious. Tricky, of course. There's a line, a—what's, uh, what's the—a tightrope! Yes. Damaged enough to engage him, but not too damaged that he disengages, blames himself, drowns in self-pity. Got to be the exact amount he wants."

Eames had gone through a lot of choice words for Declan Gage over the years: arrogant, misogynistic, uncaring, callous, unstable…hitherto she hadn't seen fit to add 'insane' to the list, but looking at him now, his eyes wild but tightly focused, his rumpled shirt stained where the blood from her cheek had dripped, a little fleck of spittle adorning his chin as he gestured, still gripping the knife—

What had happened to him?

"Here's an idea," she managed to rasp out. "Call up Bobby. Let's hear exactly how—damaged—he wants me."

Declan snorted. "Pfft. I figured out ages ago that Bobby can't objective when you're involved. One of the clues, how I knew—how he felt. And then watching—both of you, you're so—" his fingers milled through nothing, as though trying to sculpt a representation of exactly what they so were.

"And you think…what?" she asked. "That once you're—done with me I'll just fall into his arms and he'll welcome you into his life? Sing your praises? Invite you to our wedding? Have you over for dinner and ask you to be godfather to our children?"

Declan stilled, seemed to almost crumple in on himself. For a moment—just a moment—he looked like nothing more than a confused old man who had taken a wrong turn on the way to the library. "No," he whispered. "I know he won't forgive me." He rocked back and forth on his heels. "Even if—I told him why—but we're not going to do that." He took a deep breath, straightened. Raised the knife again, running the flat of the blade along Alex's cheek in a parody of tenderness. "Thinking any of this is his fault—you know what that'll do to him. He'll run away, and you'll both be as alone as, as alone can be. So as far as he's concerned, I'm punishing him for Jo. And that'll be our story, and we'll make him all better. Won't we, Detective Eames?"

She opened her mouth to respond and he slipped the knife inside. She froze. The steel slid across her wet flesh, clicked and clacked against her teeth. Cold. Bitter. Declan snickered and raised his other hand to her hip, slipped it under her shirt to trace little figure eights on her skin.

A leer. "Good things come in small packages, mmm?"

_I will not_ _cry._

"You'll make my Bobby so happy, Detective Eames. He needs to be happy again. Like he used to be.

"And now, if you'll excuse me—not that you, ha, have a, hmm, choice—I have to make a call. Unless I am mistaken, Detective Bobby Goren will be starting to become frantic about your absence just about right, ah—now."


	3. Chapter 3

**A.N. Hey, I just wanted to thank y'all for the great reviews, you guys are the best. I was a little worried when this was just out of the gate and didn't seem to be getting much love, but the rise in interest lately has been very exciting. Thanks again! :)**

His head hurt, and Eames still wasn't answering her cell.

_Bobby, right now you _are_ a suspect._

Had the elevator always taken this long to get to the eleventh floor?

Had the lights always glared this bright?

Fluorescent. Gas discharge lamp. Electricity excites mercury vapor, which, which produces short-wave ultraviolet light that then causes—it causes—

_(think Goren think Goren thinkthinkthink it's right there rightfuckingthere)_

Causes—

_(buzzbuzzbuzz go the lights and hahaha go the lights hahahabuzzbuzzbuzz)_

"It causes—"

_(all your pain is self-inflicted)_

She had tilted her head up, baring her throat and baring her soul through her eyes wide and wet and edged in black that made the almond topaz shine even brighter wetter softer sadder _Bobby, right now you _are_ a suspect—_

"Shut up!" he snapped out loud, and then had to jump to look around and make sure he was on the elevator alone.

"Sorry," he muttered to the complete lack of people around him.

Eames was probably still pissed at him. That was why she wasn't answering. Of course it was.

He pressed his forehead against the cool metal of the elevator wall. He shut his eyes and the darkness was nowhere near dark enough.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and his lips brushed smooth steel.

Eames was probably upstairs. She was probably sitting right at her desk. She was probably sitting safe and sound right at her desk and he would walk in and tell her what he'd learned about Jo and they would bounce theories off each other and he would buy her Skittles and—

"Right," he laugh-whispered into the not-quite-black. "Right. Of course. That's ex—exactly what'll happen." And his hands came up between him and the elevator wall and scrubbed furiously at his closed eyes.

He used to think that the worst possible thing would be for Eames to leave him.

Now he knew that it would be for her to stay because she was too—tired? defeated? tied to him and his reputation? all of the above?—to try to go.

"Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry—"

_(lips against the metal and it smells and tastes like iron, like blood)_

Ding! And he jumped, and he opened his eyes, but it wasn't the eleventh floor yet, just two uniforms getting on at the seventh and they glanced at him sideways and he realized he was squashed up against the wall and he shuffled away mumbling something and goddamn it his head hurt, a dagger stabbing into his left temple—

"S—" And he barely managed to shut his mouth in time _shit shit shit_ and when was the last time he slept and maybe he should just apologize to Eames and then go home and sleep while she put together a whole tidy file of evidence so someone could arrest him

--please let someone else arrest him not her not her not her because she would look up at him against with those wet sad _broken_ eyes and broken was a thing that Eames was never supposed to be—

_I'll do whatever you ask, Eames, just please don't ever look at me like that again, or the way you looked at Brady like he was a bug like he wasn't even human like you could squash him without even noticing_

_and the lights are still TOO FUCKING BRIGHT and I can't breathe with all these people crowding me in with their not-understanding and you're not here and you're never here anymore even when you are and I need you I_

_(need you)_

_and I _

_(miss you)_

_so much all the time the way you used to smile all the time and now you smile sometimes but it's tired and you're tired of me of this of everything and I miss you so m—_

"Hey! Buddy!" One of the uniforms was waving his hand in front of Goren's face. "Hey! This your stop or what?"

"Oh." He blinked. "Oh. Right. R-right. Sorry."

There was a snicker as he exited, and he felt his fists clench, wanted suddenly to spin around and punch that jackass in the face, feel the crunch of bone under his fist, the spurt of blood, the cry of pain, he wanted to feel _something _besides—besides—

Eames' desk was empty.

Shit.

He sank into his chair.

The lights were still too bright.

_(hahahabuzzbuzzbuzzhahahahahhahaahahaaaaa)_

Whackjob.

Whackjob.

Whackjob.

Where did the human predilection for ordering things in threes come from? He remembered reading an article once, arguing that the human brain wasn't designed to fathom numbers beyond four. Not even four really, just the concept of three plus one. The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf. One plus three. Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

And then there was the human predilection for opposing binaries. Good/bad black/white day/night. Mulder and Scully, Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Why had Declan lied to him about Jo? He should ask Eames, maybe if she got back soon and wasn't too angry still—he should apologize first, even if she had checked her voice mails—they could discuss it and she could calm his brain down and it would make sense and he'd still have time to make it out to Carmel Ridge—

Shit.

He still forgot sometimes. Not as often as he used to, but still sometimes.

And now he had three more people to forget about. There were whole grand vistas of forgetting to look forward to, time to be spent automatically scanning crowds of homeless junkies for Frank's face or gaggles of teenagers for Donny's hair or crime scene reports for Nicole's signature _(whackjob)_and what kind of word was 'whackjob' anyway? He should look it up.

Maybe in the prison library if he didn't get the death penalty.

Would Alex come to his execution?

Would he want her to?

Now he was just getting maudlin. Stupid and maudlin and everything would be okay once he figured out how Nicole could be dead and why Declan lied about Jo and where the hell Eames was and where Donny's body was and why his head felt like a rusty tin can that someone kept pounding a nail into—

Tylenol. He could really use some Tylenol. Eames kept some Midol in her desk, which wasn't exactly the same thing but fuck emasculation, it was a pain medication, right?

He rifled through her drawer and found it, and as he struggled to twist off the cap it crossed his mind that Eames would probably get a kick out of this—_that time of the month, Bobby?_—and he looked up, hoping irrationally that somehow she would choose just that second to walk in.

She didn't.

Ross did.

"C—captain, have you—do you know where Eames is? I—" and the rest of what he was planning to say disintegrated into mumbles in the back of his throat and then silence at the look on Ross' face.

"No, Detective, I don't. Believe it or not, I have an entire squad to keep track of besides you two. I haven't seen her she stormed out after you."

"But that was—I've been gone for—"

Ross pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, Goren, there are exactly three things I want you to do right now." He ticked them off on his fingers as though Bobby might lose count otherwise. "Apologize to Eames. Apologize to Rodgers. Go to sleep. Can you handle that?"

_Oil and water_, Bobby thought, looking up at Ross, but he just nodded, which all of a sudden was hard to do because his head was so goddamn heavy. His whole body was one gigantic lead mold, creaking and groaning with the strain of holding him together,

_holding in all the fat straining pushing at his skin, dragging him down into inertia and stillness and nothing as it swarmed over and choked his brain, clogged every bit of space inside him till he couldn't breathe couldn't think, clogged with sticky sugar and fat and Scotch and other things almost as worthless as him, crushing his airpipe and his thoughts with the hopelessness of any comfort beyond that brief burst of relief of taste on his tongue, of feeling something besides so goddamn EMPTY_

_(empty)_

"Detective, you…have been a complete ass." Bobby's head jerked up, scowling, but to his surprise Ross' features held only—compassion? "She does believe you're innocent." He nodded towards Goren's desk. "I can't see Eames wasting good pastry on a suspect."

For the first time since he sat down Goren really looked at his desk. There was a plain white box bearing the label of a local bakery. He reached out and touched it with one finger, as if not entirely sure it was real.

"Y—you said you hadn't seen her…"

"Face it," Ross said, not unkindly. "The anonymous-pastry-list for you is running a little short these days."

"But…but you—you didn't actually _see_ her—" And Bobby was fiddling with the tape now, picking plucking frantically at it and it wouldn't come off it wouldn't come off and _this isn't right this isn't right something is wrong_ and his brain was rushing roaring trying to get the words out to Ross to make him understand_ Eames is pissed at me she wouldn't do this right now this isn't her modus operandi you don't get it _but he couldn't get the words out and he couldn't get the top off so he tucked it under his right arm and pulled with his left hand tugged tugged TUGGED and Ross' voice, exasperated, said, "Here, let me help" and they both

TUGGED

And _riiiiiiiiip –fwwoomph!—_offwiththelidexplosionslipping and—

Thud! And he was looking up at golden exploding burst of light topaz wheat flax silky shimmer soft _(hard beneath him, on his back, the floor cold)_ and he heard Ross say "What the hell?" and beneath the fluorescent lights the golden honey rays glazed a soft and unworldly sheen and for one completely irrational split second Bobby thought _angel feathers _and in the next just as irrational split second he thought _living sun _and then the soft strands filtered down through the air in horrible, unstoppable slow-motion in the suddenly silent squad room, they sighed down through the unmoving frozen air and carpeted the desks, the chairs, the floor, they settled gently into a glimmering fairy-thin blanket over Bobby's prone body, tickled his skin, and all he could do was stare up into their dizzying descent against the backdrop of the glaring buzzing lights…

Eames' hair.

His cellphone began to ring.

**A.N. Remember, every time you don't leave a review, the Chief of D's gets a piece of chocolate cake. Sure he'll eventually be driven into a diabetic coma or heart attack, but do you really want him to be happy in the meantime? **

**Next chapter we'll be back to Eames. Which reminds me…remember how I'm evil? Think about that before you move on to the next chapter. You should probably also consider how well you deal with graphic imagery.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A.N**. So I lied, and the gore is next chapter. This is the author's note chapter. I've been thinking about doing this for awhile, but some of the questions and concerns in the reviews really made it clear to me that I cannot in good conscience ask you to keep reading this unless I give you a basic idea of my motivations for writing it and (without giving too much away) how they will influence the direction this tale will be taking. So, without further ado, I present Daystar Searcher's Ridiculously Long Writing Manifesto of DOOOOOOOOOM!!! (Because everything is better with 'of Doom' on the end.)

Why did I decide to write this story?

The premise of Declan being a shipper was deliciously, deliciously meta. (Thank you, raz0rgirl! I should probably actually friend you on LJ instead of just creepily stalking you, but I'm shy. Give me time. Or a restraining order. Either is appropriate.)

It would give me an opportunity to write some seriously disturbing stuff, which I haven't done in awhile and really miss.

It would give me a chance to subtly critique the use of abduction, torture, and especially rape to indicate vulnerability on a strong female character's part and/or get her to end up with the main male character.

The first reason needs no further explanation beyond the fact that I'm a huge lit nerd (OF DOOM!), so let me move on to expanding on the others.

I like to write disturbing stuff. I like to push the limits of human emotion into one great big crashing swelling exploding thunderstorming symphony , pain and anger and frustration and grief and horror and whatever I can. Part of this is a conscious effort to follow Edgar Allan Poe's dictum that every story should be an attempt to distill the pure emotional essence of a point in time. But part of it is that while I always take praise for humorous or touching stories with a grain of salt, I'm much more ready to believe reactions of shocked and horrified disbelief. It just seems like it'd be much harder to fake. When I've managed to distill a moment to just the right cocktail of disturbing imagery and emotion, and get other people to feel it too, (warning: amateur psychoanalysis approaching rapidly) I feel alive and connected, like I'm really part of the human race. Being able to deeply disturb people makes me think I just might "get" people after all, that I've formed a connection with another human being, however tenuous. And feeling like I'm connected to humanity, like maybe I understand the world and the people in it just a little, makes the scared little girl inside of me feel a lot less terrified and lonely and like she's a freak who will never experience normal emotions and interactions.

That said, I don't want this to degenerate into torture-porn. If you ever feel I'm flirting with, or have crossed, that line, then for the love of Gene Roddenberry TELL ME. *PLEASE.*

Also, one of my techniques for trying to do this is stream-of-consciousness. So far, people seem divided on my use of italics and parentheses and whatnot. Let's just say that if this website would cooperate with me, the format would be even crazier. If you find the current format confusing, don't worry about puzzling out what every bit of text is. Just let it wash over your eyes and you'll get the main effect.

And now, on to the third reason. I'd like to preface this by saying that I have read and enjoyed a lot of good fanfic by writers I respect and admire where Eames is kidnapped, or tortured, or raped. And yes, in almost all of them she ends up with Bobby. My feelings on this particular plot device are not meant as a judgment or attack on anyone. I believe that even the most inane plot device can be transformed by the person working with it. I mean, think of the plot of 'The Magic Flute,' which I believe can be best described by a carefully drawn out, "What…the…FUCK?!" But because Mozart took it and made it his own, it's a work of art that we still admire today.

That said, I do feel that it *can* be used, on occasion, as a cop-out. Frustrated by the daunting barriers both of our favorite detectives have erected, it can appear that it would take a catastrophic event to tear them down. So instead of carefully analyzing Eames' personality and history in search of a way to realistically get her and Bobby together, it can seem a lot easier just to leap for the obvious traumatic incident: she's a woman, so have the villain rape her. And all too often the thought process ends there, with little realistic attention to what kind of repercussions this would have and only the specific kind and amount of trauma necessary to drive her into Bobby's arms. This is a disservice not only to the characters, but to real-life victims of these crimes as well. So basically I wanted to write a story where things wouldn't work out as neatly as they usually do.

On a similar note, this is not going to be a "Bobby rides in on a silver-white steed and saves the day" story. Is he going to be totally useless? No. But neither is Eames. I don't do 'damsel in distress' stories. If I even think about the words 'Eames' and 'damsel in distress' in the same sentence, my inner feminist teams up with my outer feminist to beat me senseless, shouting things like "Stop perpetuating the heterosexist patriarchal paradigm!" and "Eames can save her own damn self, fool!"

And regarding Bobby and Alex's feelings for each other in this story, keep in mind: Declan is the villain. And kind of insane. And desperate to make Bobby happy. Anything he says should be taken with a grain of salt.

Does all this mean that I am completely ruling out Bobby and Alex hooking up at the end? Assuming they're both still alive, no. Does all this mean that I am completely ruling out Gage gratuitously sexually abusing Alex? Again, no. What I'm trying to get at here is that if anything happens between the two of them, it will be against all the odds, and it will be *in spite* of whatever Declan has done, not because of it. Furthermore, it will not solve everything, or possibly even anything. Maybe it will even make things worse. It will be complicated and complicating, fucked up and painful and codependent and recriminating and guilt-inducing and I am getting a wicked angst high just *thinking* about it. Mmm, angst.

Well, that's that. If this doesn't sound like your cup of tea then I'd be grateful and honored if you'd give it a try for at least a few more chapters, but if you want to quit now I understand. Thanks for all the lovely words of support so far, as well as your patience as I struggle to balance updating with real life, and I hope all of you continue to tune in.


	5. Chapter 5

Eames was not broken.

There were small victories.

xxxxx

One: she noticed things.

One hundred and seventy seven concrete blocks on the wall in front of her. Four walls. One door. Zero windows.

Walls: grey. Floor: brown. Ceiling: grey with spiderwebs. She counted fourteen spiders. Grey/brown.

Door: cream paint peeling like dying skin away from the original coat. Dark blue.

Fire hose in the corner: blue. Hooked up to the faucet. Steel grey. Like the drain below her.

Her blindfold on the floor. Red. Her gag on the floor. Red. Five unevenly spaced blood drops.

Red.

When Declan returned for her "treatments," she noticed everything about him: every crease of his clothes and every speck of dirt on his skin and every tic of his face and body.

When she was alone she strained and strained but could hear no sounds beyond her breathing, its choking desperate gasps, and the thunder of her blood beating in her ears.

These were the things she noticed and no one could take them away from her.

xxxxx

Two: she planned.

Get her wrists free—no, the wire was too tight, twist—no, no leverage, try—_owohGod!God!God! I WILL NOT CRY—_try, try, try, trytrytry

something_somethingsomething_

_if at first you don't succeed_

_()_

_(Iwillkillyou)_

No strength left in her arms, but surprise would be on her side—knife to the jugular, slash the carotid too just to be sure—use the wire from her wrists to choke him if she couldn't get her hands on the knife—or just knock him into the wall, use the momentum to smash his skull—

Search his pockets once he was down, find keys, find a cell phone—ohpleaseohplease_ohplease if I could just make a call and have this all be over over fucking game over high score_

_(nononodon'tlaugh, don't start laughing again because you won't be able to stop and and and and andandandandandandandandand)_

--if no cell or keys pick the lock with the wire, make it to a public place, find someone, tell someone—

_I will get out._

These were the plans she made and no one could take them away from her.

xxxxx

Three: she did not cry.

She would not.

She did not cry in the long hours she was left alone, the pain swelling like a storm in his wrists and her shoulders, lightning crackling and stabbing and lancing up and down and up and down her arms, stab stab stab oh God—

She did not cry at the cramps in her legs and the cramps in her stomach that twisted and yanked at her body, yanked at it against the wire, tearing deeper and deeper into her skin as the blood trickled down her arms, as the pain screamed its way through her body like being electrocuted, fingertips to ankles to fingertips, red and angry and screaming and stabbing and—

She was so hungry, so goddamn hungry, growling howling empty monster in her stomach, fire, oh God, what was the last thing she ate, what was it

_(bagel with strawberry cream cheese)_

_(bagel with strawberry cream cheese)_

_(bagel)(bread)(grain)(round)(munch)(filling)(smooth)(mornings)_

Stomach clenching and unclenching and--

_(strawberry)(fruit)(berry)(juicy)(spring)(red)(seeds)(spurt)(suck)(maul)(lick)(devour)_

--stomach twisting so bad she would have thrown up if there had been anything to throw up and her mouth dry but aching with needing to water, to overflow--

_(cream cheese)(cream)()(cheese) ()(creamcheese)(bagel)(breakfast)(smooth)(thick)(spread)(slather)(eat)()_

_(bagel)_

_(strawberry)_

_(cream)_

_(cheese)_

_Please…_

She did not cry when the inevitable happened and her body rebelled against all her self-control, filth trickling down her pants legs. The stench clogging her nostrils.

And she did not cry when it stopped because there was nothing left in her digestive system.

She did not cry during her treatments. Not when the water from the fire hose slammed against her like a wall, jerking her hard yet again against her restraints, forcing whimpers past her lips but no tears past her eyes. How long? Who could tell? Just _slamslamslam _unrelenting pounding smashing crushing every inch of it, neverending, over and over neverending just this and this and this smash crush pound and she chokes on the water going down her nose _can'tbreathecan'tbreathecan't_

_BREATHE_

but she had to open her mouth just a little because this would be the only time she would get any water at all, and she choked on the water but she kept her mouth open so thirsty needing nee—

She did not cry afterwards, when it was finally done, her clothes now sopping with water, pulling her down even heaver. The wire biting through tissue like she was cooked rare.

The drain sucked away the red-tinged water.

The sound made her throat ache.

Declan would be tired from having to hold the fire hose, but he always made an effort to whip her with it afterwards. A game. He said. The four hundred blows, he said the first time, and then laughed uproariously.

He did not explain the joke.

One!

He missed, the hose slapping the ground beside her.

Two!

It connected solidly with her back, and she cried out at the explosion of pain. No tears.

Three!

A glancing blow but still painful; she bit down hard on her lip to muffle her shriek. Tasted iron.

Sometimes he got bored before four hundred.

Sometimes he didn't.

When he was done, he'd just circle her for awhile. Watching. Studying. His eyes raking over her, the way her clothes clung to her. Sometimes he drew closer, wary after the time she managed to kick him.

Sometimes he'd stroke her skin, slip his fingers beneath the bottom hem of her shirt, the waistband of her pants. Whispering how Bobby would make it all better.

She would not cry.

xxxxx

These were her victories and they were small but they were hers and she clung to them, her fingers clamped around each other.

xxxxx

Five treatments so far. Irregularly paced. As far as she could tell.

Click.

"Lucy, I'm home!"

This would make six.

Slam.

She was trying so hard to keep her eyes open but her eyes hurt and her arms hurt and her stomach hurt and everything fucking _hurt _like fire clawing her apart and she couldn't—

Tap tap tap. Footsteps. Close.

_Eyes open eyes open OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES YOU BITCH GET HIM GET HIM_

(can't)

(sorry)

_sting_

_(needle needle a fucking needle what the fuck Dec you still scared of me)_

"Sleep tight."

xxxxx

"Gonna, gonna make Bobby a, a mix tape. Is that what it's still called? Tape? You still say 'tape' even when it's recorded, ah, digitally, I know. On, a, a, a whaddayacallit. Still. Not accurate."

Awake. Still here. Foggy.

Arms, arms not hurting so much. Weight distribution different—

Lying down. On her back. Okay. Okay.

"Let him, let him know we're moving on to the next stage of your treatments. Opening you up."

Surface. Scratchy, beneath her back. Wood?

Keep eyes shut. Don't let him know. Awake. If doesn't. Already.

Mind like moving through molasses.

Focus.

_(tired)_

Wood. A table. Restraints. Wrists ankles two above-bodies (shoulders lower stomach).

_Hey Bobby, now we're table-torture buddies. We should have a secret password._

Hey. Focus.

"And afterwards you can have a, a little snack. For, ah—" he chuckled. "Being such a good girl."

_Bastard. _

Shuffling. Clicking. Clicking?

"Just got to, ah, set up the equipment here, no, no sense in inferior sound quality, Bobby's already got enough to work through right now without, uh, unduly, uh, handicapping him, wouldn't you say? I imagine he's quite, quite, ah, distraught. Don't worry, he'll get better once he's got you back, safe and—safe, and, and sound."

_Yes, let's worry about Bobby, shall we?_

"Well, more or less. Figuratively. He'll have to help, of course, putting you back, back together. And you'll both be so, so happy, won't you, Alexandra?" He leaned close enough for her to smell the menthol of his breath. "I know you're awake, Alexandra."

_Alex I'm Alex I'm Alex Eames Detective Alex Eames I am Detective Alex Eames of Major Case Squad, senior partner, badge number—_

He tugged her pants down to her knees. Cold air hit her skin.

_No nonono this is not happening, this isn't happening, this happening isn't possible, thisisn'tnononononohappening--_

Pulled her shirt up. "For the, ah, the visual stimulation."

_No._

"Don't worry, not going to, ah, how to put it, not going to, uh—take care of the job myself. Physically. Wouldn't do that to Bobby, I mean--"

And she bit back a hysterical laugh, _wouldn't do that to Bobby, _yes, let's worry about Bobby, let's worry about how all this is going to affect Bobby, let's consider the potential ramifications of my being—

"—you're his, after all, all his, no one else's, that's ah, that's the whole, that's, ah, dammit. What's the phrase? _Raison d'etre. _The whole _raison d'etre_ of this program. Take him apart to rebuild. Take you apart to rebuild. Loss of control, violation, they're key. The foundation. But still. If I did it that'd just be too personal, too much, too much guilt, have to balance. So—"

Something pressed against her thigh. Cold. Smooth. Hard.

Glass. A glass bottle.

No. Just no. Not happening. Not possible. A billion billion alternate universes and you would never find this because this was impossible and not happening and—

He pushed her legs apart and she tried to lock them together but she couldn't move couldn'.. and—

Cold trailing up closer closer closer and the bottle slid between her legs and ice between her legs and _goddamnyouIwillnotfuckingcry (pleasepleasepleasedon'tletmecry)_ and SHOVED—

and he pushed in_—no—_and he pushed in_—no—_and he pushed in—_NO_

_It hurts it hurts make it stop it hurts red and stars and exploding—SHOVE—and it hurts—PUSH—and it hurts make it make it make it not gonna cry stopstopstopstopstop no noise don't let himhear this is not happening this doesn't happen to me this is and no and stop and why can't I stop it and no and pain and and hurt and oh God stopitstopitstopit _please_--_

"Tight little thing, aren'tcha? Gonna make my Bobby so happy, Alexandra." He pushed.

_I'm going to kill you_

"You'll make him so happy and he'll make this all go away, I promise—"

_I am going to fucking _kill _you_

"He'll, he'll be so gentle. So tender. Kiss it all away. Soft kisses. Whispering how much he loves you. Love it all away."

_IAMGOINGTOKILLYOU_

"He's sweet in bed, Bobby. His conquests, in Korea, oh, they talked him up. And to someone he loves—he will be so sweet to you, Alexandra. Every, ah, every place now that feels pain, every bruise, every scar, he'll kiss it so soft. Make you feel so special, safe. Loved. Important to the, ah, the healing process. You'd have gotten better much faster the first time if you'd let him in."

_I am going to beat in your skull with my bare fists until there's nothing left but a bloody pulp and then I am going to slam your body into the wall again and again and again until every single bone in your body is ground into dust and your internal organs are one big soup and then I am going to whip you with the fire hose until you burst like a leaky balloon of blood and then I am going to find my gun and shoot you until I run out of bullets and then I am going to take this bottle and shove it up your ass and then I will take it and hit you and hit you and hit you and hit you and hit you and hit you and hit you and hit you and hit you and hit you until there is nothing left of you until I have destroyed every single disgusting evil bit of you_

"He'll make it all better, I promise. As the, as the first time, we can, can end it early today if you want. Just—just whimper, a little. For the tape. And then we can end your treatment early just this once."

Eames opened her eyes. Same ceiling. Declan hovered over her in a cloud of menthol. His arm was poised between her legs, the bottle momentarily still in her aching core.

She licked her lips, tried to remember how to speak. He leaned closer, mic in hand. She opened her mouth.

"I…am going to—kill you…"

xxxxx

Eames was not broken.


	6. Chapter 6

Bobby was broken.

"_Did you get my present, Bobby? Like it? Sweets from the, ah, sweet."_

He was slumped in his chair, at his desk. Couldn't movecouldn't think couldn't couldn't couldn't

"_And Alexandra is very sweet, isn't she? She wouldn't want anyone else to know, but you and I, mm? Eh? Our little secret?"_

Broken and useless.

"_In any case, you shouldn't be loading up on sugar right now. Physical stimulant, mental suppressant. And you need to be on all engines firing right now, mmm? Mmm? Wouldn't want the lovely Detective Alexandra to die because you needed a donut, would you?"_

He remembered shouting. Moving. Saying things (don't you dare hurt her don't you dare hurt her don't you fucking dare I'll kill you I'll) yelling things all his training out the window puppet-jerking his body whirling his thoughts whirling can't stop can't stop _can'tstopcan'tstopcan'tstop_ and did he actually backhand Ross when he tried to take the phone and

"_Why are Bavarian Cremes suddenly called Boston Cremes when they have chocolate frosting? They're the same damn thing, you know. Same damn thing."_

All the things he said were a blur in his memory, his words firing fast out of his mouth, clumsy scared machine gun fire.

Each of Declan's words was burned into his brain sharp and precise and crystal clear.

"_Eames this, Eames that. For God's sake, Bobby, you've known the woman what, seven, eight years? She has a first name. Maybe you need a, a whatchacallit. Mnemonic device. Use them all the time, very useful. Maybe I'll, ah, test a new one. Carve it on her face for you. Will that jog your memory? Mmm?_

And then—

"_Should I take souvenirs, Bobby? Jo, she never took parts—not fully committed to it, some natural tendency but didn't study fully the pathology, to, to appreciate, didn't—I should set an example, eh, be more involved? Doncha think?"_

_NO_

_NO_

_NO_

_NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO_

And then he thought he might have been shouting, cursing, threatening, maybe screaming (don't you fucking dare hurt her don't you), he was moving the world was moving around him up up down down around and around we go and then—

"_Did your mother ever let you kiss her with that mouth, Bobby? Or was that something else only Frank got? Hmm?" A chuckle, low and dirty. "Or Brady? We'll, ah, chat later."_

_Click._

_Goodbye._

_The End._

_And_

_and_

_andeverythingjust_

_stopped._

And now he was broken. Couldn't move couldn't think battery pack ripped from his back/wires cut/frozen solid.

(Eames is, Eames is, Eames is, Eames is is isisisisis)

(idontknow)

(sorry)

He must even look broken, he thought. A crumpled doll, defective toy soldier. Smashed factory reject. The Energizer Bunny finally run out of juice, broken limbs collapsed over the scattered papers on his desk, cheap parts barely held together, barely propped up. Ready to tumble down. Dead blank eyes painted on and staring soullessly into nothing.

The world did not exist anymore.

Four days.

Four days, eleven hours, twenty-one minutes.

The world had not existed since then.

He was broken but his brain didn't know it yet, refused to accept it, kept trying to send information down the corrupted pathways:

(last time I saw Eames what was her facial expression (sad) what was her vocal inflection (sad) was she worried (always) could I have seen could I have known I should have known)(who was that man off to the left brown hair red hair maybe blond hair why can't I remember)(Declan's old he's weak he'd need help (accomplices (interrogate his fellow faculty members (old grudges (Jo)))))(How they'd get her (hit her)(drug her (sugar in her coffee we should check that)(threaten her (threaten her family (threaten me) (threaten her nephew (she has nieces too)))))) Thisfilepathwayhasbeencorruptedsheshouldhaveshotyourfuckingbrainoutthisfilepathwayhasbeencorruptederroronpagewe'resorryyourcallisimportanttousworthlessbastardworthlessbastard

(literally, hahaha)

0110010101100001011011010110010101110011

0110010101100001011011010110010101110011

01100001011011000110010101111000

(This file pathway has been corrupted)

And he couldn't think but his thoughts didn't know that and they tried pushed strained cried out with the effort, the pain, but every path they traveled circled back from theories and conjecture to just Eames, Eames drinking coffee, Eames smiling, Eames frowning, Eames firing her gun, Eames pushing her hair out of her face, Eames laughing, Eames typing

(EamesEamesEames)

Eames pressing back tears behind her eyes _(I want to explain/this isn't one of your puzzles/you're the genius and I just carry your water, right)_, Eames eating Skittles, Eames making a face behind a witness' back, Eames and her eyes and her nose and her shoulders and her elbows and her lips and her teeth and her hair and all the components of Eames

(and he keeps seeing them all disassembled when he closes his eyes)

And he was so fucking _useless_ and even if he wasn't they wouldn't let him do anything see anything touch anything too close too close sorry Goren you know how it is too close, everybody in Major Case except her fucking _partner_ hiding away in the conference room with the blinds closed, and if one more person said that to him he was going to—

"Bobby." He looked up. He could still do that. Apparently.

It was Ross.

He called him Bobby.

He'd never done that before.

Gears turned and clicked and ground, and with a suddenness like ice shooting up all his veins he knew that something horrible was crashing down onto him. "Did they…did they find her?"

_("Body!" Clang as the crowbar hits the floor)_

"What? No, no." Ross seemed to be genuinely startled by the question, but he was inflecting his words with that slightly off-tone politeness he used in tricky situations, and he had on his politics face_._ "I just need you to come into my office, and go over some of the surveillance tapes again."

"We did that. We did—we—I—" Bobby scrubbed at his face as if he wanted to tear it off. Fuck, maybe he did. "I don't recognize anyone. Anyone that I, I shouldn't. I watched them ten times and then you said to stop and you wouldn't let me watch anymore and—there's no one there, there's—Gage, he—"

"You needed to take a break," Ross said, and his voice sounded a little more human but still…off. "Fresh eyes. It can't hurt, can it?" _He's trying to get you out of the main squadroom. _"When was the last time you ate? I'll get you a sandwich or something." _Definitely doesn't want you in the squadroom._

"Okay." Bobby stood, limbs creaking in protest. Some part of his brain noted the half-inch Ross' left foot skittered back as he loomed over the captain. People did that. Forgot how tall he was, panicking for a millisecond when he stood. Evolution taking over and telling them to run from the big scary predator.

Eames never had.

Ross turned his back on the predator _(tiger attacks on government workers decreased dramatically when they were issued masks for the back of their heads)_, leading Goren to his office, and out of the corner of his eye Bobby saw the blinds on the conference room swing a little to the left, a pale slice of skin peeking through, checking on him, making sure he was out of the way—

Fuck this.

The tiger pounced.

Bobby veered off from his course and before Ross even noticed he was swinging open the door. Everyone's head snapped up in shock. Except Wheeler's. She was concentrating on a letter and frowned slightly at the sound of his entrance: "We haven't made much headway yet, Captain. He makes reference to some sort of audiotape not being ready yet, and sending this along so Goren can 'play with himself, since his usual playmate is indisp—'"

She looked up.

"Oh, shit."

The words were empty and echoing and unreal in the room. They were drowned out by the pictures.

Eames. Eames on every wall.

Naked.

Posed.

The photos consumed the room, papering over every inch of the walls, tacked onto corkboards, scattered over the table. Croppings and close-ups and blow-ups and digital enhancements, a black-and-white surrealist Playboy acid trip landscape.

Here. Arms crossed beneath her small breasts, pushing them up.

Here. Her fingers pushed between her thighs.

Here. Lying back, spread-eagled.

Here. All fours back to the camera head down. Collared.

Here Here Here Here Here.

Bobby stumbled back a step, felt his shoulder collide with Ross' head.

Here. Here. Here.

(all the components of Eames have been assembled for his eyes)

And always in the photos _her_ eyes, they were—

(NO)

Blank eyes, sad broken _gone_ doll eyes—

"He…he's drugging her," Bobby hear someone say in a stupid tinny distant voice. "He…fucking drugged her or, or starved her until she was too weak, and he—" Was _he_ saying these things? "He had to have drugged her or hurt her or—"

Ross' hand on his shoulder. "Bobby—"

Bobby jerked away. "She's not dead!"

Silence.

"She's not! She's not, she can't—" He was shaking his head, shaking it back and forth and back and forth and it was going to snap off his head and no, not happening, Eames, she—"I won't let her I won't I won't---she's not, he wouldn't, not yet, he—"

"Detective!" Ross was shaking him, trying to slow him down, but he needed to speed up, to thinkmoveact, to—"We believe she's alive. We do. We just didn't want you to have to see this."

Shaking his head. Shaking his head. "I have to know. You have to tell me. I have to know, because I see, she's my partner and I close my eyes and I see her, I—"

"Okay. Okay." Ross' fingers were digging into his shoulder now. "Okay. We'll keep you in the loop. Breathe, Goren."

Bobby nodded, struggled, tried to pull air into his spasming lungs. There was an earthquake in his brain and it was going to rip his body apart. The Richter Scale was developed in 1935 by Charles Richter in partnership with Beno Gutenberg. "You'll tell me."

"Everything," Ross agreed. "There'll be a delay as we get evidence, but you'll get everything."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Okay." Goren rocked back and forth on his feet a little, still shaking. The room was shaking, the people in the room were shaking. They were all staring at him. The pictures of Eames were crowding against each other, pushing and shoving for space. He clenched his fists. "Al—alright."

Then he turned, paused for a moment as though he had forgotten something, and shoved his head through the glass conference room window.

**A.N. Sorry for the insane delay. Lately** **getting my muse to cooperate has been even more like pulling teeth than usual. **

**Next chapter, the Angst Train makes another stop in Torture Town. Meanwhile, I go straight to hell.**


	7. Chapter 7

**A.N. Because I am a horrible, horrible person, as I watched Eames' emotional anguish in "Lady's Man" one thought burned bright in my mind: how could I make this **_**even worse**_**? Those of you waving your hands in the air and going, "Oooh! Oooh! I know! I know! Incorporate it into a torture session!" may come to the front of the class and get your gold star.**

This is what happened:

He stopped beating her after he started raping her.

He did not take pictures after the first time.

For every tear she did not shed she paid with sounds ripped out of her body and deposited in the waiting digital recorder.

He rubbed lotion on her skin. Medications. So it wouldn't scar. So it would remain soft. So Bobby would be able to enjoy her body, enjoy touching her skin.

He rubbed it all over her.

He raped her with the bottle once a day. He opened the door. He said things as he set up the equipment and she locked her lips and her eyes and he raped her with the bottle as he told her how wonderful her life with Bobby would be. He disinfected the bottle. He said more things.

He had switched tables right away. The wood was too porous. Stainless steel was more efficient to hose down.

He used an ordinary garden hose. And then the lotion. Too much water was bad for the skin.

Stainless steel also did not leave splinters when she struggled. Splinters could lead to scarring.

After he raped her and disinfected the bottle again, he fed her Tang and bits of sandwiches. Sometimes he found an unwrapped Rollo in his pockets. The lint stuck in her throat.

Then he connected her to the pulley system and positioned her over the drain. She relieved herself. He hosed her again.

He had cut off her clothes after the third time to streamline the process. He liked to speculate about how Bobby would appreciate each part of her.

He bound her again to the table. He covered her with a blanket and said things and left.

The lotion smelled like roses soaked in formaldehyde, and it clung to her tighter than the restraints.

This is what happened, again and again and again.

xxxxx

And again. And again. And.

Again.

xxxxx

_--somebody just started singing it not knowing what it was and then they kept on singing it forever just because it is the song that never ends it goes on and on my friends somebody just started singing it not knowing what it was and then they kept on singing it forever just because it is the song that never ends it goes on and on my friends somebody just started singing it not knowing what it was and they kept on singing it—_

xxxxx

Squeak…squeeeeeeeeeeeeak—squeesqueesqueeeeeeee—THUD!

_Ouch_mumblemutter_fuck_cry_ouch_thudclickrumblerumblerolling, slam!

The noises penetrated the fog of the Place Away, the Here/NotHere in her head. Batted away, around, through the white _(numb) _and red_ (hurts) _clouds, and dread uncurled like a spooling thread in her stomach.

Declan was coming.

And he was pushing something on wheels. Something heavy. Wheels ungreased.

Squeeeeaaaaaaak…._(shrieeeeeeek---nononononopleaseno)_squee—eeeeeeeeeeeeaallllCRASH!

louderclosergettingcloser(), slam!

She wanted to go away. Stay away. ThePlaceAwayTheHere/NotHere. In her head where everything was so

_(stop it stop it stop it it hurts why can't I stop it I'm supposed to be able to stop it)_

quiet, and the pain was just a buzzing and Declan was a fly, but she couldn't go to the quiet place (even though it's quiet, and libraries are quiet, and Bobby likes libraries and he might be there) because she was supposed to

_(I can't remember)_

_( )_

stay strong,

that's right, stay strong and hold on and notice things (that's two thuds so far, two slams, at least two doors in the passageway to here) and it was very important not to cry (why is that again…?)

(_sorry this information is not available at this time, please leave your name and number and try your call again what the fuck)_

shriekSQUEAL!shri-squeal! Shri-shri-

THUD!

The door rattled.

Close. Six feet. Her door.

_(no not mine)_

Third door.

_(okay there are three doors can I go now please can I go now don't make me stay)_

No, NO, she had to, had to, HAD TO (do the right thing (what is the right thing))

NO CHOICE FOLLOW THE RULES DO THE RIGHT THING BE THE BEST YOU CAN BE STIFF UPPER LIP I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN AN ARMY OF ONE

_if at first you don't succeed, try, try again and again and again and again and oh god not again_

"Good morning, Alexandra."

_(sticks and stones may break my bones, and break my bones, and breakbreakbreak my bones)_

The fear was like a snake climbing up her insides, cold scales rubbing up against her ribcage.

_(and grind her bones to make my bread)_

"We're going to do something, ah--new today."

_FE FI FO FUM_

(the snake hissed against her spine and its breath was frost)

"I'm going to help you let go."

Eames opened her eyes.

"Aha! Mmm! Sleeping Beauty awakes!"

_(( (((you're not funny))) )))_

Her eyes flitted past him to the thing he'd been pushing. Long. White. Wide. Rectangular prism.

A freezer.

Declan noticed, chuckled, chortled, a gleeful wheezing mummy-rasp. "Oh, not that, not that, not for you, well—" he twirled his wrist. "Later, in a—ah, a sense. An, a, a, an, a, whaddayacallit?" He snapped his fingers through the air, snap snap snap. Snap! "Object lesson! But not now. For now…mm, this."

He pulled a small briefcase from on top on the freezer. "Your place is locked up tight, sealed like the, ah, grave—inaccurate metaphor, you know, ridiculously ethnocentric metaphor, not every culture permanently inters the, mm, dead, at least not in one go—the tribe, I forgot the tribe, they're, they're…ah, doesn't matter. They unearth them—special ceremonies—the cleansing of the dead to remove the contaminating female essence and leave only the pure, the, the pure masculinity. But your place! Sealed. But our little mutual friend got me a thing or two…he's _very _angry with you, Alexandra. Very unstable. Not a, a safe man to be around."

_Declan, Irony; Irony, Declan. Why don't you two chat?_

It was such a _normal _thought, such a strong and clear and clearly_-_not-belonging-here thought, that for a moment Eames was absolutely convinced someone else in the room had said it out loud. She clung to it, bit her tongue to taste it in her blood and convince herself it was real, _I am not gone yet did you hear that that was me I am not gone yet (pleasepleaseplease)_

And she was concentrating so hard on that thought and holding on to it and keeping it that it wasn't until Declan completely emptied the briefcase that she realized what exactly the contents were.

Pictures.

Of Joe.

(NO)

"You…hold on. To things. Things that, you should, should, let go—to everything there is a season—"

Five rows. Joe and her. Joe by himself. Joe with family.

Five rows of the pictures lined up together, and the big picture was coming together, and—

_(the snake smiles and loops his icy coils around her throat, squeezing tighttighttight and his fangs are poised to rip her open)_

"Working theory: it's preventing you from forming workable long-term relationships—you're holding to tight to the ideal, because the ideal is safe, incorruptible—so much of the world you see is, is corrupt, eh?"

nice smile (he always smiled at her) nice hair (she ruffled it in the mornings and he tackled her, tickling) strong arms (gentle hands) bright eyes (he looked at her and saw all of her and everything and no matter what he saw he smiled like she was the most amazing perfect fantastic thing he had ever seen)--the wedding St. Paddy's Day her birthday his birthday Dutton family reunion barbecue—_I'm so sorry I argued with you at the barbecue it was stupid Joe I wish I didn't remember what it was about but I remember every single word and I'm so sorry I loved you love you and I'm so sorry I didn't save you I watched you die and I'm going to fail you again I'_

Declan held up the first photo. The wedding. Joe's arm around her. "You need a catalyst. To move on. Otherwise—stuck! You need, a, a symbolic act of breaking with the past. Severing the link."

He took a lighter out of his pocket.

(NO)

"NO!"

Her voice was raw and sudden and at the sound of it Declan jerked like an electrocuted puppet—

…and _beamed._

"You're _engaging_! See, I told you, I said but you didn't listen—" he wagged his finger, his grin splitting his face in half—"no one appreciates, sees, they don't--this is for your own good, you know, I'm trying—you and Bobby won't even try, I have to try, you don't, don't give me enough credit, but soon—"

Alex jerked against the restraints, _letmegoletmegoletmego--_

_GONNAKILLYOU--_tried to say something, anything, she would have begged for him, vocal cords clenching and flexing with the strain of pushing shoving ramming the words up out of her mouth but they stayed in the back of her throat, triggering her gag reflex until she choked on the words she couldn't get out because the world didn't make words for this—

(JoeJoeJoe_Joeplease_)

Gage was nodding, up and down and up and down, a bobble-head doll, his fingers dancing through the air: "We're going to make _excellent_ progress today."

--her lips struggled through the air mouthing the tortured outlines of all the words that didn't exist and that sliced her up inside with their trying to get out—

Gage raised the picture, grinning. Joe smiled at Alex on the table. Alex smiled at Alex on the table.

Gage raised the lighter.

Click.

A hungry tongue of flame.

It lapped at the air for a second, salivating, and then Declan brought it to the picture and it licked eagerly at the glossy paper. It grew and swelled as the sooty black tendrils raced across the surface in advance of the ravening flames.

Devouring every trace of Joe.

The next picture. And the next. And the next.

Erasing him.

And the tears streamed down Alex's cheeks.


	8. Chapter 8

**A.N. I've been trying to write this in past tense, except for the thoughts, which should be in present tense, but reading over it I've noticed a few places where I've slipped up. Just thought I'd let y'all know that I will be fixing those soon. If you see any new ones, let me know and I'll get right on it.**

**Oh, and the "love, desire, ambition, faith" bit is a quote from **_**Invasion of the Body Snatchers.**_

Elizabeth Rodgers shifted uncomfortably, arms crossed. "Captain…"

"It's not hurting anything to have him down here. Hell, it's _helping_. He's calmer than I've seen him in days. Just let him have that corner."

"And the next time he decides to put his head through a window?"

"He's not going to do that again. He had a shock."

Rodgers leveled her best stare at him. "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but you do really think this is the last time something's going to upset him?"

"No, but—"

"I have scalpels lying around here!" she snapped, her voice losing some of its dry edge to actual worry. "Saws! Chemicals! A morgue is not a safe place for a mentally unstable detective!"

"Are you worried about him being alone with you? Did he—" Ross' eyes narrowed, his voice rising. "Did something happen when he stormed in here that you didn't tell me?"

"No, just—I've already broken God knows how many regulations just to stitch him up. You should've taken him to a hospital. I can't do anything more to help him, I—" she sighed. "I'm not good at being nice!"

"Oh, I don't know about that."

She nudged the left edge of his shoe with her right. "Trying to butter me up?"

"Yes."

"Bastard," she said, but without real feeling.

"I know."

She looked into his eyes. They were more worried than she had ever seen them, and she felt her stomach drop. "It's been over seventy-two hours…"

"I know," he said again, heavily.

They fell silent, and then turned as one to look out of her office at the single light that shone in the lab: a flickering desk-lamp by the corner where Bobby Goren huddled, hunched over his binder, flipping through the pictures Ross had given him. It cast a golden halo over him, and the darkness danced and swirled and lapped at the edges, threatening to devour him.

xxxxx

Bobby's mind was a sheet of perfect blank white paper, smooth and unending yawning emptiness.

He could not cover her face.

He had put her in his binder. All of her. Every picture. He kept looking, flip flip flip through the pictures, because to stop looking would be to turn away and if he turned away, looked away, if he so much as fucking _blinked—_

But he couldn't keep looking at her like that, at all of her, without her permission, because it was wrong and disrespectful and she'd be mad—and she was going to be mad, because she was alive, she was she was SHE WAS

(right?)

so he had cut and stapled, so carefully, little construction paper folders with pockets of different heights and slipped her in, wincing when the edge of the photos snagged _(sorry, Eames)_, slipped her in and covered her up so she

(wouldn't be cold)

wouldn't have to lie there on the page, stuck trapped _exposed_, for anyone to see without her permission—

Flip flip flip flip flip.

_Keep looking keep looking make sure she's still there keep looking keep looking there's a clue a clue she would've left me a clue_

Had to keep looking keep her safe keep her all covered up except for her face because if he covered up her face that would mean

_(she's dead)_

NO

_Dead, adj: (1) deprived of life, no longer alive; (2) having the appearance of death; (3) lacking power to move, feel, or respond; (4) very tired; (5) incapable of being stirred emotionally or intellectually; (6) grown cold; (7) no longer producing or functioning; (8)…_

_(hey Eames me too)_

xxxxx

"Detective Goren?"

Rodgers' voice was strange. Pod-person voice. Pod-Rodgers. M.E.s and body snatchers, the parallels. _Love, desire, ambition, faith - without them, life's so simple, believe me._

_(I believe)_

"You don't…have to be nice to me," he said. Very far away he said it. Far away on a distant mountain and bouncing off canyon walls (_the Grand Canyon has 30.7 miles of maintained trails_) until it came to his ears faint and echoing.

"Well, that's a relief," she muttered. She slid down the wall to sit next to him. "Have you eaten? The coffee down here is marginally less horrible than up on your floor."

Bobby scooted away. "Please stop being nice to me." He clutched his binder to his chest. "I need, I need to think."

_I need you to act normal because I need this to be normal so I can think and if it's normal Eames will come walking back through that door and if it's not normal she'll never come back but if I try very very very hard maybe I can hold the universe still and make it all make sense (even if _

_I don't) oh god please just _

_act normal_

_(close your eyes and click your heels three times)_

"All right," Rodgers said. "Just—" She paused, and Bobby could see all the words swirling behind her eyes, smashing together in frenzied battle, useless and inappropriate: _everything will be okay/we'll find her/if you need anything just ask/please don't kill yourself in my lab._

"I'm sorry," he blurted. "For, for the other day. That was inappropriate, and rude, and you were just doing your job and I shouldn't have scared you."

"That'll be the day," she said with a snort. But she gave his shoulder an awkward pat as she stood. "Do me a favor? Don't make me have to stitch you up again."

xxxxx

It was dark and so

cold

in the midnight lab with the

cold dead

bodies with the

eyes

that never shut or never

opened and it was

quiet in his

head

and everything was so

quiet _(clue clue_

_clue I need a clue) _except

for the steady

flip

flip

flip flip

of the pictures and

it was dark

and the little

boy was

scared

and everything was so cold

(cold)

And frozen in his

head (_Encyclopedia Brown Finds a Clue)_

and all his thoughts were all

cold and

gone

without Eames.

xxxxx

Ring. Ring. Ring. Pick up the fucking ring ring ring (ring) phone, pick up the (ring ring riiiiiing) phone, pick up the—

"Goren?" Ross' voice at last, choked with sleepiness. "It's—"

"Three a.m., I know, I know, I know, I—I noticed something, I—" Bobby gulped down a breath. "Captain, we need to interrogate Kevin Mulrooney."


	9. Chapter 9

**A.N. Hey, everybody! Thanks for your patience during the long wait between updates and for your awesome reviews! Y'all are the best.**

**As for this chapter, looking back over this and seeing the length, I was torn about whether or not to separate it into two chapters. On one hand, I felt that the respective climaxes of each location—the interrogation room/observation room, Eames' prison—deserved their own scene. On the other hand, I wanted to deliver the impression that these events were occurring simultaneously. In the end, especially since the next chapter is also going to be two events occurring simultaneously, I decided it would less confusing to just do this one long chapter instead of Eames location chapter, Goren location chapter. Still, I welcome your feedback, so if you have any thoughts on the matter, let me know! And of course any other thoughts. Thanks.**

_Drip._

_Drip._

_Freezer lid up. White. Like an arm, reaching_

_(so high/she touches the sky/and swing, swing, swi--) Crunching--_

_Declan's feet, moving around on the ice. In freezer. Open. Dripping._

_Drip._

xxxxx

"So Alexandra's gone missing _again_?" He had a little rat face, Kevin Mulrooney. Pinched rat nose, beady caged eyes. "Terrible. Terrible. Just—terrible."

"Yeah," Wheeler said, lounging against the door. "And of course my senior partner picks now—_now_—to retire and I get stuck taking point on this alone until they dig up some rookie from Homicide to stick me with. It's like they're setting me up to fail."

Mulrooney's hand tightened briefly on the edge of his chair. "I know how that is."

"Yeah?" Wheeler picked absentmindedly at her fingernails. "Hope you don't mind all this. Captain'll be along in a second to babysit me—then we can get moving. Get done by lunch if we're lucky."

"Not a problem." Thin sharp smile. "Anything for Alexandra."

xxxxx

"Her name is Alex," Bobby muttered, pressed up against the observation window. The glass cold against his lips with each word. Ice against his eyelids with each blink.

xxxxx

_Crack. Snap. Crunch._

_(snapcracklepop)_

_Crash! Swearing. Slipped, must've. Declan. In the freezer. Walls too high. To see._

_(it's so hard to remember what is now and what is before and what is never ever happening)_

_Jingling (jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all_

_the way) jingling, slippery ring-ting-ting-a-ling_

_new pulley system_

_dangling_

_above the white freezer._

_Time for an object lesson._

_Drip._

xxxxx

"You know," Megan said as though it had just occurred to her, "Eames was pretty hot."

Kevin turned red. "I'm not discussing—"

Wheeler held up her hands. "Hey, hey, wasn't going to go into that. Just killing time." She went back to examining her fingernails.

"She was all right."

A snort. "She was a goddess. Thought about asking her out, the first few weeks I was here."

It was Mulrooney's turn to snort. He leaned back in his chair. "Well, you would've been sorely disappointed."

"Tell me about it. Only thing straighter than her would be a fencepost." Megan shook her head. "Still, I actually gave up on her before I knew that for sure. Certain people, sometimes you can just smell it on them, you know? The weakness. The failure."

Kevin started. Leaned forward, slowly. "You…saw that too?"

"Oh, yeah. She's good at putting up a strong front, making you believe what she wants you to believe, but at the end of the day?"

His tongue flicked out over his lips.

"At the end of the day, she's just good at slipping past the blame, passing off the weakness as someone else's. I've seen Ross do it all the time with her and Goren."

Mulrooney was nodding eagerly. "My first big break—she lost it for me. All she had to do was not mention the first eyewitness testimony and she—she just refused. She was still all broken up over her husband, wouldn't listen to reason. People felt sorry for her—she came out of it smelling like a rose."

"Women like her, they just ruin it for the rest of us," Megan said with disgust. "I worked a case with her once, and let me tell you, once was enough."

He was leaning towards her now, caution forgotten. "You know, in some ways whoever took her did you a favor. She would've brought you all down in the end."

xxxxx

"Brought yourself down," Bobby whispered. "We always do." _Down once more to the dungeon of you spin me right round baby right round like a record baby of my black despair _

_(melancholia: extreme depression characterized by tearful sadness and irrational fears)_

"Yeah, well, try telling that to Captain Ross," Wheeler was saying on the other side of the mirror. "As far as he's concerned, she's the golden half of the partnership." She looked up from her fingernails, moving closer as she lowered her voice slightly. "You know, I'm pretty sure he was screwing her."

Beside Bobby, Ross winced. "Thank you, Wheeler, I don't get nearly enough visits from IAB as it is."

"Why? Is it true?" Goren muttered into the window. Hot breath. Cold glass. _Under the Mpemba effect hot water freezes faster than cold water._

"I don't have affairs with my subordinates, Detective."

xxxxx

"—wouldn't be surprised," Mulrooney said. "Alexandra always liked power. But the second you're out of it—"

"You're yesterday's news," Wheeler commiserated. "Bitch." She took the chair across from him, leaning in conspiratorially. "Honestly, all this is exactly why I wouldn't worry about the panties."

He blanched, his chair squeaking back an inch. "I have nothing to say about that."

"That's probably a smart move," Wheeler said, shrugging. "I'm just saying…so you had some of her underwear. And we do know it's hers, DNA was a match, so—big deal. You two had a thing, right? Just because it didn't work out doesn't mean you can't keep a few souvenirs."

"She _owed_ me." The words leapt from his mouth as if of their own volition.

"Exactly!" Jesus, if she played this any younger and more naïve she would be going 'Duh!' and giggling. She wanted him off his guard, but she'd have to be careful not to go overboard. "Now my last ex—didn't catch that weakness soon enough. Got under my skin, lying little scumbag. God, did that make the break-up hell. Does that mean I can't keep something to remind me of the good times?"

"You'd be better off forgetting her."

_And add Kevin Mulrooney to the list of people who never listen for personal pronouns. _"Probably. But it's hard when they get to you like that, you know?"

"I…know."

"Besides," she said with a wink, "my ex's underwear? Fits like a charm."

Definite twitch. _Gotcha._

"So like I was saying," she went on, "I wouldn't worry about the panties. Heck, we even found some we _know_ weren't Eames'—guess you like big girls now, huh? What was the name on the boxes in the recycling, 'Gab--'"

"You leave her out of this," he hissed. Fidgeting in his chair. Caged rat.

"Don't get your panties in a twist," she told him, smirking.

"Your conduct is immature and unprofessional and—"

"And you're going to complain about me to Captain Ross when he gets here and even Traffic won't take me," Wheeler said in a bored voice. "Terrifying. I'll try not to wet myself." Another twitch from Mulrooney. _Yeesh, do my job for me. _"Look, like I said, the panties aren't really incriminating at all." Megan stood suddenly and he flinched as she towered over him. She savored that sensation for a moment before meandering over to the TV. Tapped the screen. "Now what's on these tapes—_that's_ incriminating."

xxxxx

_Slipping clicking clinking swinging chains as Gage attached the pulley to the thing she still can't see in the freezer._

_Drip._

_(the world is gray and cold and)_

"_Time for an object lesson," Declan said, and she remembered_

_predicting that thirty seconds ago when he_

_(dripdripdrip)_

_s li_

_pp e_

_d_

_(her thoughts are dripping out of her like the water dripping bleeding away with feeling and remembering and)_

_Crash!_

_(dripdripdrip) and Gage said, no, snapped (miffed):_

"_Don't just, ah, don't just lie there like a lump. Recite your lesson. Good girl."_

_And she said:_

"_I love Bobby."_

_(the words are gray and cold)_

_And she said:_

"_Bobby loves me."_

_(the words are far away)_

_And she said:_

"_I need to let Bobby take care of me."_

"_I want to let Bobby take care of me."_

_I will let Bobby take care of me."_

"_And then Bobby will be happy."_

_(the words and the room and herself are not real (gray empty dreams))_

_And she said:_

"_I will make Bobby happy."_

_She said and said and said until the words were done and she went back to being dead on the outside too._

_Drip._

xxxxx

He could see Ross darting his eyes at him and if he could've been bothered Bobby would've explained to the captain that he wasn't standing so close to the mirror because he was getting ready to smash his fists or his head again or his feet through the glass, and that he wasn't going to make enough noise for Mulrooney to hear and get on his guard (or more on his guard since Mulrooney should know that there was almost certainly someone watching him, but guys like Mulrooney forgot they weren't invincible sometimes or else remembered and decided to fuck it and put on a show).

No, it was none of that, none, just that he read _Through the Looking Glass_ sitting cross-legged on the library floor two weeks before Francis Goren had her first psychotic episode and the part of his brain that stayed forever frozen in that moment knew, just knew, that if he pressed against the glass hard enough he would slip through into the opposite mirror world where Mulrooney was gone and Eames was okay and Declan had never gone insane and neither had Jo and Wheeler wasn't the one confidently interrogating the suspect because it was him because his brain wasn't be broken into little shards because Eames would be okay, be okay, be okay, be okay.

"Be okay," he whispered, and the air bounced back at him, empty and answerless.

xxxxx

_Declan Gage clambered over the side of the freezer, mumbling muttering nuttering things that _

_sli_

_pp e d_

_away into little curling scraps of words that wind could blow away_

_(rain rain go away come again some other day) and he_

_(dripdrip)_

_pulled!_

_fingers slipping on the wet metal chain,_

_yank!_

_and it screamed as he jerked it, rusty wet, over the pulley, made it come to him_

_(SCREAMING THE CHAIN SCREAMS IT HURTS EVERY LINK SCREAMING IN AGONY INSIDE MAKE IT STOP)_

_He swore as his feet tried to find purchase_

_--drip—_

_on the smooth concrete floor soaked with melted ice_

_the object slowly rising: (lump) (pink) (white/yellow)_

_(RED)_

_Nicole Wallace._

_Drip._

xxxxx

"See, here's the problem," Wheeler said, fast-forwarding through the elevator camera footage. "Right about—ah! Here you are." Her thumb jabbed down, freezing the frame. "Can you believe we still have videotapes? This system should've gone digital a long time ago. Still, the quality's not bad—that is you, right?"

"So what?" Mulrooney snapped. "I'm an ADA. I have business here."

"Not that day, you didn't," Wheeler said. "Not at Major Case, and that's where you got off. But maybe--" she snapped her fingers as though inspiration had struck—"maybe you didn't have any work at all. Maybe—" her thumb stabbed down onto the fast-forward button again—"you were just here to see an old friend." Pause button! "Oh, look, there she is."

Eames stood on the screen, hand tucking her hair behind her ear, left foot frozen in midstep onto the elevator.

"I had nothing to discuss with her," Mulrooney muttered.

"But see, here's the thing," Wheeler continued as though he hadn't spoken. "Eames doesn't seem very happy to see you." She rewound and pressed Play again. "As a matter of fact, you don't seem very happy to see her. You seem…nervous. Were you nervous, Kevin?"

"I fail to see the point of—"

"You stay at opposite corners the entire ride. You don't even look at each other after that first glance. And then the two of you get off at Major Case, opposite directions, and poof! You're gone."

"Weren't you going to wait for your—"

"Can you walk through walls, Kevin? Can you teleport? Because you're not on the rest of this tape. Do you want to keep watching the rest of this tape? Maybe we'll see something illuminating."

"I took the goddamn stairs!"

"No, Kevin, you didn't. The stairs have been keycard-coded since 9/11. There's no record of your code anywhere in the system."

"So there was a computer error, or, or someone held it for me, I don't remember—"

"Why did you go to the right?"

"What?"

"Off the elevator," Wheeler said, as though to a slow child. "Eames exits to the left, towards the squadroom, the captain's office, interview and interrogation rooms. The stairwells. But you? You go to the right. Why would you do that, _Kevin_? All that's to the right are some utility closets and the women's restroom…"

"I was confused—"

Wheeler shook her head. "No, Kevin was scared. He was _terrified_. Kevin thought it'd be easy, thought he was finally strong enough, but you took one look at Eames and you knew, didn't you? Knew she was still stronger and braver than Kevin, knew he couldn't overpower her because he could never overpower her—how humiliating was it for Kevin when he couldn't persuade his girlfriend to lie on the stand? Did he cry? Did he piss his—"

"Why are you talking like that?!"

"—pants, did he? Because she was always stronger!" Wheeler slammed her fist onto the table. "That's why you went to the restrooms, isn't it, because you saw her and you knew Kevin couldn't handle her, Kevin could never handle her, but Gabby, Gabby Roth—"

"No." Mulrooney was shaking his head back and forth, fingers white as he gripped the chair. "No, no, no, not like that, no…"

"Gabby could handle anything, couldn't she? Gabby's not afraid of anyone, ever. Gabby's not afraid of Kevin's little blonde ex-girlfriend." Wheeler drew around behind him, fastforwarding and pressing Play. "Oh, look, here comes Gabby now."

Mulrooney's head lifted involuntarily, his gaze tracking Gabby on the screen. A soft breath escaped him.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?" Wheeler whispered in his ear. "Put together. Perfect. Nothing could not go her way."

"Nothing…" he breathed.

"And now she's texting someone. Look at that, she already has a plan. She's not even to the parking garage yet and she already knows what to do. No hesitation. No fear.

"What did Gabby say to Eames, Kevin? Did she pretend to be Bobby, using someone else's phone? A witness, with new evidence for the case? Alex was too smart to meet her alone…unless she thought it would help her partner."

"Alexandra would've done anything for that half-baked lump of lard," he muttered. Still entranced by the image on the screen.

"Would she have lied for him?" Wheeler murmured as Gabby Roth exited the elevator and it began to make its way upwards again. "Did she lie for him in court? She'd lie for him and not for you—every successful conviction, you watched and you knew she was saying what he wanted her to say, because she cared about him, because _he_ wasn't worthless—"

"He's weak, they're all weak, damaged goods—"

"No, it's even worse than that, isn't it—" her lips still inches from his ear but her voice steadily rising, thrumming, crescendo, almost there—Eames getting into the elevator, biting her lip, worried as it descended—"you watched and you knew she didn't have to lie, you saw each headline, each glowing article, Goren and Eames and Goren andEamesandGorenandEAMES, and you knew how powerful she still was, how she was tough and getting tougher and you could never wear her down—no, you'd have to just keep sitting in your dank little underground office with your lacy red panties under your suit and thinking about her up here in the clouds above the dirty noisy streets, and you'd get so _angry_ in your shitty little office, sitting there watching life go by you and thinking of Eames and not knowing which you want more, to fuck her or _be_ her—"

"This doesn't prove a damn thing!" Mulrooney leapt up, almost knocking Wheeler away, pacing angrily back and forth, rat-teeth bared in a furious terrified grimace. "Kevin went up in the elevator, Alexandra went up in the elevator, Gabby went down the elevator, Alexandra went down the elevator—this isn't near enough for an arrest—"

"But it's just enough for search warrant." Wheeler stalked slowly towards him. "The one CSU is going to carry out on your car in about five minutes. You've been served, by the way." She pulled a folded piece of paper out of her pocket, crinkled it into a ball, and tossed it at him. It bounced off his nose. "What'd'you think they'll find?"

"They won't find anything!"

"You know, I really don't think that's the case." She took another step towards him. He jerked back. She smiled, slow and wicked. "Kevin was very stupid, wasn't he? Kevin didn't just let Gabby take Eames to Gage after subduing her, no, Kevin had to prove he was a _big boy_."

Mulrooney dropped to his knees, grabbed at the search warrant, tried to smooth out the crinkles, his hands were shaking—"Shut up you don't know shut up you don't know—"

"The hair, that wasn't Declan's idea, was it—the cashier at Maplevine Pastries didn't recognize a picture of him, but she recognized you—"

"If you don't have a credit card number you don't have anything!"

"That was all Kevin, wasn't it? He was so angry Gabby had to take care of him that he had to prove himself, he made himself sit there in his car in the parking garage and he cut off all of Alex's hair—"

"No!"

"Did Kevin's hands shake? Did the scissors slip? Did he have to scrabble for them on the floor, sweating and swearing and crying because he was so scared, because he's a scared little baby? Are we going to find urine in the upholstery, Kevin? Your dad told us how you pissed your pants on your first plane ride to Ireland, it's been a real problem, hasn't it—"

"YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!"

"But even that wasn't enough, no, Kevin had to cut her skin—God, you were _so_ scared, your hands shook—she was fucking unconscious and you were still fucking terrified of her—

"I wasn't scared of her!" He was still kneeling. "I wasn't—didn't—I—didn't do...anything—"

"_You carved your fucking initials into her neck!"_

Kevin flinched, folded into himself, curled on the floor. "No…no…"

Wheeler squatted down next to him. "Declan tried to keep it out of the photos—lighting, make-up, framing…but it's still there for anyone who's really looking. Just like your weakness."

"Please no…"

"Kevin was so stupid, wasn't he? I bet he didn't even try to clean the car—I bet he liked riding around, feeling like he had a piece of her with him, feeling like he'd conquered her, like he was a big man, but no, Kevin's just a whiny little crybaby who tugs at ponytails and pisses himself like a—"

"I CAME!"

You could have heard two dust motes collide, crashing together like asteroids.

"What?" Wheeler asked. She thought she asked. Far away. She thought she'd heard him say…

"I…came." Kevin was staring off at nothing, on his side, hugging his knees. His lower lip trembled. "Didn't piss my pants. Came."

Wheeler felt her fists clench, lock, blood rising in a hot red tide behind her eyes. Two uniforms came through the door, but she held up her arm. "Not--not yet." Turned back to Mulrooney.

"Kevin? You can fix this. You can get a reduced sentence, I'll—" God, the words tasted bitter in her mouth— "recommend leniency if you tell us everything you know."

He turned his eyes to her, pleading. "Why isn't Gabby saving me?"

xxxxx

_Because no one's stronger than Eames,_ Bobby said in his brain, and it cut past through between all the screaming angry loud jostling shapes that were careening ricocheting back and forth the sides of his skull, _he said "I came" but we're closer to finding her but he said "I came" I would've been in the car on the way to see Jo but he might tell us how to find her but I want to kill him but Eames but he said "I came" but EAMES._

Wheeler had been yelling and now she stood over Mulrooney, breathing hard. Her foot drawn back like the fall of a pin would be all she needed to send it flying forward hard.

Mulrooney was weeping.

"I—I don't know—I don't—know, I just have—I was supposed to deliver it, soon, I was going to, but it was—I have this." He started to pull something from his pocket and Wheeler let her foot slam into his stomach, grabbed him as he doubled up and shoved him into the wall, cuffing him.

"They grow up so fast."

Bobby blinked, turned to Ross. "What?"

"What?"

"Nevermind."

One of the uniforms reached gingerly into Mulrooney's pocket and pulled out a small digital recorder. Handed it to Wheeler and helped pull the perp from the room.

And as Bobby and Ross watched, Wheeler's thumb slid down the recorder's smooth plastic and pressed Play.

xxxxx

_Nicole rose into the air haltingly, jerking, an undead puppet or stop-motion angel, pink-tinged droplets falling from her skin—pale as snow except where the blood had settled, dark blotches like roses pressing up through her flesh—blonde hair swung forward over the face but not enough to hide the smear of blood lipsticking her mouth. Ice crystals had congregated in her eye sockets and made her cry as they melted --_

"_See this—this is what happens. To bad girls. When they are ah, uh, mm, stubborn. 'For stubbornness is as, as…iniquity and idolatry!' That's it. She could've loved Bobby, she could've been an acceptable, ah, alternate, at least a few years ago, but no, had to be stubborn, independent, had to…"_

_--Nicole had been wearing a stylish white blouse, but the ice-water had plastered it to every inch of her, snow-skin showing through as the fabric clung to the indentation of her bellybutton and the pink jut of her right nipple. There was not enough of her other breast left for it to cling there too._

"_Peekaboo!" said Declan, peering through the jagged hole where Nichole Wallace's heart had been._

"_Hello, Eames," said Nicole._

_Drip._

_Drip._

_Drip._


	10. Chapter 10

"I must say, I'm very disappointed in you, Detective Eames."

_Shut up._

"Speak up, darling, I can't hear you. Dr. Gage sawed off most of my right ear before realizing the heart was much more symbolic."

_SHUT UP._

"Am I talking? I most certainly can't be talking. After all, I've been dead for quite some time now."

xxxxx

Bobby stole a copy of the tape. They let him listen to it once, everyone hawk-leaning watching him to pounce if he went berserker insane off the wall but he didn't, he sat quiet and listened and then asked Ross if he could have a copy and Ross said no so he went back later and stole one. He had had it for five hours and now had approximately twenty minutes before Wheeler got back from the crib and realized her copy was gone.

But he couldn't listen to it.

He sat at his desk and turned it over and over in his hands, cold compact black and clear plastic, a rectangle, rectangular prism, prison, plastic prison _(eames inside)_, and his fingers touched and touched and touched and he could not open…

He had twenty (nineteen now) or less minutes to listen to the tape and find clues and find Eames, but he _couldn't _because if he pressed Play—

_(the NOISES, the soft and stabbing noises, and that hiss of breath)_

"Was it exciting?"

His left case clenched around the plastic case. He did not look at the chair across from him. "Shut _up_, Nicole."

xxxxx

"What? No snappy little one-liner?" Nicole smirked, a section of her lower lip peeling away and flopping over. "Now I truly am disappointed in you."

_Fuck off. _

"Oh, you can do better than that, my dear. And I had such high expectations, too. Something pithy and morally simplistic, but surprisingly imaginative and referential. Go ahead…impress me."

Eames clenched her fists. _You're dead._

"Or a pun! You used to be so good at puns. It was charming, in a clichéd sort of way."

_You're dead. I'm hallucinating. Stress and inadequate nutrition, combined with the disruption of circadian rhythms—_

"And now you're just dreadfully dry and boring. 'Circadian rhythms?' You're going to have to learn to tilt your head if you want to spout jargon like that."

_I'm not talking to you. _She rested her head back against the metal table. Stared at the ceiling.

"Are you sure? You're not talking to Declan, after all, even when he's here. When he even remembers to be here."

Four cracks in the ceiling. Concrete blocks. The hook. Spiderweb cracks.

"How long, do you think, until he forgets you entirely? Until he dies, and can't leave Bobby any more clues to find you? How long until you're all alone here, dying, just so _pathetically_ gratefulfor the illusion of my company?"

xxxxx

"But wouldn't you like some company, Bobby? No one else is going to talk to you. They all think you've gone off the deep end. Off your rocker. The great Detective Goren—" her tongue smacked on his name—"finally fallen to _pieces_. Tell me…" A shift of shadow as she stood, and then her breath, hot and treacherous, on his ear. "Are they wrong?"

"Go away," he muttered.

Her chapped lips brushed his earlobe. "Why don't you turn around?"

"You're not real. I'm, I'm having a reaction. To the stress, and not sleeping, a-and I haven't eaten anything except the stuff Ross brings me." And most of that he threw away.

"'More of the gravy than the grave' about me?" Nicole laughed, low and throaty. "I never took you for a Dickens fan."

The night shift janitor skirted the desk, shooting Goren a dubious look. Bobby ducked his head lower so the man couldn't see his lips move. "I'm not—not discussing literature with you. O-or anything else."

"What will you do without her, Bobby? Will you still be able to do the job, just a few months of mandated counseling to repress me and the worst of your other demons? You can't even listen to a tape...sixteen minutes now. Will they let you come back, back to the stares and whispers and everyone who remembers what happened to last poor soul partnered with the _brilliant_ Bobby Goren?"

"This isn't about me."

A dark chuckle, bitter edge. "Haven't you noticed, Detective? It's always about you."

xxxxx

"Speak of the devil," Nicole said as Declan entered.

_You're one to talk._

Nicole leered. "Now there's the Detective Eames we know and love." A few maggots slipped from her hairline like squirming dandruff. "Brava!"

Declan was pacing, mumbling agitatedly, seemingly unaware of the stench or the squish of watery blood beneath his shoes. "We're not on schedule—we're not—that is, fast, but too slow, at the same time—theory! The relativity of time within—no, no…"

He snapped his fingers and wheeled suddenly. "Communication! Yes, that's—rekindling, ah, ah, resensitivization, yes, that'll—" He fumbled excitedly in his briefcase.

Nicole yawned, teeth gaping from shrunken bloodshot gums. "Really, Detective, I'm quite dissatisfied with your performance here. I mean, look at him. He couldn't kidnap a sandwich from Meals on Wheels."

_He got you, didn't he?_

"Touche."

xxxxx

"_Go away_," Goren insisted, teeth gritted because out of the corner of his eyes he could see Wheeler striding towards him, all purpose and gentle exasperation and if he accidentally said something to Nicole while she was there—

"Very well, Bobby." An amused sigh, and then softer, fading away: "Does it look like Megan's putting on weight to you? Like I said back in interrogation, she is growing up so very fast…"

"Goren." Wheeler drew level with his desk. "I need it back."

"I know," he said. His hand clenched tighter around the recording anyway.

A moment of stillness, then Wheeler pulled up a chair and sat. "You know Ross is going to shit a brick if he finds out."

He was thrown by the casual profanity tossed out with the tilt of her head, the lifted eyebrow and dry words not enough to hide the concern in her eyes. Like someone else he knew.

"How many times have you listened to that?" She nodded towards the tape.

"I…can't."

"It's bad."

"It's…" He swallowed. He could feel the words pressing up, and he shouldn't let them press up, she'd tell Ross but they were bubbling frothing over the top—"I put it in, and when I go to close it—it's like—and then I closed it and I tried to push the button but every time…it's, it's like…" His throat spasmed, sealing away his voice into a choked whisper--"I'm doing it…"

Wheeler opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it. She reached out and gripped his shoulder tightly, her hand small but unyielding.

"Goren!" The door to the interview room burst open. "Goren, get in here now!"

xxxxx

"No, no, no, need to talk to Bobby, you'll give me Bobby or I'll hang up and no more clues, you'll have to do this on your own and you're not doing too well, are you? Mulrooney a, a, whadyacallit, dead end. Five seconds. Five, four…"

"I'll give him the absentminded professor this," Nicole said, "he does know how to bluff." She cast a rueful glance downward at the gaping hole in her chest.

"Two…"

xxxxx

"I'm here!" Barked into the phone, and he had to hold himself back from saying it over and over, his head swirling with the hastily shouted instructions _keep him on the line/don't agitate him/get him at ease_ like he was a fucking rookie except maybe he did need to be reminded because the only thought in his head right now was _Eames Eames (Eames Eames)_ like a drumbeat on the inside of his skull—the world is swirling around him, Wheeler scurrying to help the techs set up the trace, the phone in his hand was an anchor and his heart was going to beat through his chest and he was going to throw up--

"Hello, Bobby. Alexandra would like to speak with you."


	11. Chapter 11

"Eames?"

Faint, tinny, breaths, couldn't tell if they were hers (ohgodpleasehers) or the echo of his against the cold plastic receiver and he could barely hear past the pounding in his ears, his heart trying to shove air into his aching out-of-practice lungs-

"Eames?"

_She's not there._

"Eames, are y—"

"Bobby?"

Eames.

Voice faint and fragile as a snowflake.

But _her_.

"Hey, Bobby." Stronger, almost a laugh.

Goren sagged against the table as his legs folded under him like origami, eyes shutting (shut out the rest of the station) against the buzzing blinding lights, tried to—tried to breathe in her voice.

"Hey…hey, Eames."

"Been awhile," she said, and he could definitely hear the laugh now, the trying-to-laugh, the edge of something-else-but-leave-it-alone-Bobby-don't-pry. "We should get together sometime."

And she was so _alive_, her voice, it was thin and small and cracked and creaking, a little, but it was alive alive alive and he wanted to shout and jump and reach through the phone line and he gripped the table's edge, eyes squeezed shut—_shut up Ross shut up Wheeler shut up Jeffries Roslin Pulaski Hernandez—_and honed in on her voice, rememorized the pitch and lilt and fall, fall…

"Bobby?" she said, and he realized he hadn't replied.

"Oh! Yeah, yeah, we—" he gulped, there was suddenly not enough air, there was just her voice and he was drowning in the dark beyond his eyelids—"we should. We will. I promise."

"I know you do," she said, and that was a promise too, somehow.

"Still taking care of me," he muttered.

"What?"

"You…you always know. And it's—I forget sometimes that you don't, and I do things that I—I forget you're not inside my head, and then you're angry and you're gone…" He gulped again, swallowing something that wasn't a sob, didn't have time for that right now, God, what the fuck was he doing? "Sorry, Eames. I mean—sorry."

"It's okay," she said, and he could feel her looking at him, that little crease in his brow and her bright sad hazel-and-whiskey eyes.

If he kept his eyes shut he could stay at his desk and she could be at her desk and it could just be a day after a hard case and she could be looking at him with those eyes and that twisty little sad frown while he closed his eyes and she could be okay…

There was a flurry of mish-mash sounds, words (muffled mumbled) in the background of the call (Declan's voice) and then a sharp hiss (Eames) inwards and she said, "He wants me to tell you some things—ah! something, okay? Something. Singular." Her voice was strained, stretched tight. "Just—is this—is this getting recorded?"

"Yeah, I think so, I—" Wheeler's hand on his shoulder, mouth near his other ear as she whispered _yes. _"Yeah. Is Declan, is he…listening?"

"Just to my side. Okay, he wants to ask—" she swallowed, and he heard her voice shift, hitch for just a fraction of a second before it slid back into matter-of-fact—"he wants me to ask if you liked the pictures."

The edge of the table was biting into his fingers. "Eames, did he—I saw the pictures, and there was the tape but I couldn't tell…did he hurt—did-"

"Don't." Stern, forbidding, even now, but he could hear something underneath it and the something made the blood behind his eyes boil red and his hands shake like palsy—

"But if he—"

"Not _now_, Bobby. Please."

His face was wet. When did that happen? "God, Eames, I swear—I'm so s-sorry, I swear if he, if he—"

"_Not now, Bobby!"_

xxxxx

Eames squeezed her eyes shut, tried to breathe _(inoutinoutin-out-in-just-get-it-right—_

Over the phone in Gage's hand: "Sorry."

He sounded so small.

_Stop making me take care of you._

Declan nudged her again, harder this time.

"Bobby?"

"Yeah?" High and hopeful.

_Stop sounding like a fucking puppy. I can't deal with you being a fucking kicked puppy right now._

Declan dug his fingers into her hair, tugged sharply. He wanted her to do it _now_.

"I love you."

Deafening silence. Then, low and pained, "Alex…"

She interrupted him. "Let my family know I'm okay, alright? Let them know I—I'm thinking about them, okay?"

"Of course, yeah, yeah, I promise. Eames—"

Declan was trying to pull away the phone, she clamped it between her neck and shoulder. "Talk to Jo, Bobby, talk to both of them, both—"

Gage yanked it away, hit the off button.

"Clever, clever, little thing," he muttered down at her, leering down like a underfed ghoul. He rubbed his chin. "Whenja, whenja figure that out, hmm?"

"He's getting worse," Nicole noted. "Some sort of degenerative disorder, I'd imagine. If you have a plan, I'd suggest putting it into action, oh, two weeks ago."

Eames turned her face away from both of them."

"Not going to tell me? That's, ah, that's rude, you know." Declan tried to lean into her field of vision. "It's, whaddyacallit, not cricket. We're in this together, remember? It'll all be, mm, worth it in the end. Nobody appreciates—got to do this all myself, got to calibrate the, ah, tension, make it so it all flows, smooth, a, a, whatchamacallit, flowchart! Muddying the stream, that's, uh, that's you're doing, theory! Historical precedent set by Eve, a conditioned rather than physiological response—or, mm, at least not purely physical—"

He dug a pen out of his pocket and turned away, scribbling notes on the back of his hand.

And Eames turned her left wrist, pulling the screws on that restraint a millimeter or two further from the rusted metal.


	12. Chapter 12

**Hey everybody! Still alive, and still writing! Apologies to those of you whom I promised I would have this chapter up by Thanksgiving break; that…didn't happen. But I have only one more final project left, so I thought I would take a break and write this sucker up for y'all. Hope what happens next helps make up for the wait—I know a few of you have been waiting for it for some time now.**

Twist-pull. Twist-pull. Ignore the pinprick (twist-pull) pain and the burning (twist) muscle ache, it isn't (pull) important.

Twist-pull. Twist…pull. How many now? Ignore the

(trickle of sweat or blood)

Twist-pull

(risk of tetanus—how long ago was your booster?)

twist-pull twist-pull twist pul—

(clink)

xxxxx

Jo's mouth sagged open slightly, a wet red gash in her pale face, not enough to see the damage she'd done to herself but just enough to beckon the gaze closer. Her fingers, nails clipped close by the nurses, lay flat on the industrial grey blanket. Goren tore his eyes away, looked at the picture-less walls.

"I'm telling you," the nurse said, "Dr. Gage hasn't been here since the first time." She crossed her plump arms, then uncrossed them and set them on her hips.

Goren ran his hands over the books on the shelf. Four yearbooks, one romance novel, one album, three criminology texts. All covered in dust.

"So he just completely cut off contact?" Wheeler asked. "No phone calls to see how she was doing? Did he ever ask a particular doctor or nurse to give him any updates?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that. There's a note in her file to call him if she regains consciousness, but he's not the…hovering kind."

He reached for the volume on hostage situations and then wavered, plucked out the album. Ah, not an album after all. A wedding planner. He flipped through it.

Every page was blank.

"What about fellow inmates?" Wheeler pushed. "Was Dr. Gage especially friendly to any of them, show any sort of interest?"

"He did ask if it would be possible to speak with Edgar Buendia, maybe on a regular basis before or after his visits with his daughter. But Mr. Buendia died of AIDS complications just a few months after Ms. Gage slipped into her coma. It never panned out."

Wheeler jotted the name down on her notepad. "Thank you, ma'am. We'd like to take a look at his records and his former room, just in case."

"I'm telling you and I'm telling you." The nurse sighed and shook her head. "That man wasn't here after that one time. We tried to get him around for her birthday or for Christmas; the most he could do was send along a present in mid-January. And then what does he send her?" She harrumphed. "A wedding planner!"

_Of course._ _It's all wrong,_ Bobby thought, and realized he'd said it out loud when the two women's heads swung around towards him.

The nurse harrumphed again. "You're telling me."

"No, no, it's—it's _wrong_. The planner, the—" He beckoned Wheeler closer. "This isn't—his pathology, it's not, not—look at it!"

Wheeler came to his side, peered down at the planner. "What am I supposed to be seeing here?"

"It's—it's empty…it's supposed to be a taunt to me but it's empty…" Wheeler's face stayed blank, and Goren fought the feeling that his heart was swelling to pop in his chest.

_Breathe, Bobby_. What Eames would say. If she were here.

"But she's not, is she?" Nicole sneered, lounging on the bed next to Jo. "Oh dear. Do you think you'll be able to get the words out, Bobby? Or will they just careen in circles in your chest, bursting to get out but you just can't think, can you, they're making you dizzy, they're sucking up all the air—you'll be pulled away to the madhouse and nobody'll know you're shouting the truth…"

"Goren?" Wheeler's bright eyes, concerned. "Goren, just walk me through, okay?"

"And you'll shout and shout till you're throat is scraped raw with the words bursting out of it but nobody'll listen and she'll die and it will all be your fault because right now, right now when they would have believed you, you couldn't make the words come…"

"Shut up…" Bobby whispered. Squeezed his eyes shut. Words, words, words, casting in the darkness—

"Goren, do you need me to call a doctor?"

"No! No, no, I'm—" He sucked in a breath. _Eames. _Think of Eames. "It's wrong. The planner. Declan blames me for what happened to Jo, he said…he blames me, so it should be full of anger. Broken dreams. All his, his repressed hopes for his little girl."

A quick intake of breath; did she understand? "But it's not."

"No, no, it's—" He opened his eyes. Flipped through the pages for her to see. "It's blank. Declan's…absent. Jo's…absent. It's not about, the things he said it was about aren't what it's about. It's not—"

A piece of paper fell out from the beginning of the section marked 'Reception Hall.' Both detectives swooped down for it but Goren was quicker. "Coupons…half a page of coupons from the Sunday paper—"

"Nah, the paper's wrong." Wheeler examined it closely. "This is more like from those booklets you sell for fundraisers in high school." She shrugged. "I did debate."

Goren wheeled around towards the nurse. "Do you have any idea how this got here?"

She eyed him like he was a dog that might spring at her. "Uh…well, Missy's boy is always selling things for his swim team…she might've brought some of those booklets in when Dr. Gage was here, I suppose."

"We need to see them."

xxxxx

Her right arm was no longer restrained. The bloodied manacle hung by one rivet to the table. She wiped the frayed skin of her wrist against her thigh and hoped he wouldn't look close enough to see.

"What on earth do you hope to accomplish?" Nicole asked.

She flexed her arm, her fist, each joint. Clench, unclench. Clench, unclench. CPR for muscles dead to use for weeks.

"You couldn't strangle a kitten," Nicole snapped. "At this point I've got more muscle definition than you." She waved her own arm to demonstrate, flesh slipping and sliding on the bone.

Eames had not been able to smell anything since Bobby's phone call. She couldn't remember if that was ironic. In any case, it was merciful.

"Is that supposed to be some sort of dig about my state of…deshabille?"

She kept her eyes fixed on the ceiling. Felt her mouth stretch in a grim parody of a smile. Clench, unclench.

Her right arm was free, and her mind was clear and ready for the first time in weeks and weeks.

Clench, unclench. Breathing life back into bone and muscle and sinew.

All she had to do was wait.

xxxxx

It was a good thing the staff had phoned ahead to Missy Delgado's house, because she barely had time to get out "What can I do for you, officers—" before Goren charged forward, practically barreling her over in her own doorway, vaulting up the stairs to her sons' room two at a time. Wheeler shot the quickest apologetic glance she could at the shell-shocked woman and hurried after him before he could demolish the house on accident.

Ricky Delgado, hair messed like he'd been woken from a nap, poked his head out of his room. "Hey, Ma, I found one of those things you were—"

Bobby ripped it out of his hands before the kid could even finish the sentence. Flipped through it until he came to the page across from the one that had been ripped out, ignoring the squawks of protest from the teen and Wheeler's placating patter.

_Hank's X-Tra Large Assorted Appliances._

A cartoon man in red overalls, with a hammer and blue baseball cap. He'd seen that somewhere before…

_Ovens, Iceboxes, and Refrigerators._

Red overalls, red hammer. Goofy grin with crooked front teeth, blue baseball cap. Had he seen another coupon before? No. Magazine ad?

_Visit us today at one of our three locations._

Radio ad? No, he'd seen it, not heard it. Another case, one he and Eames had worked together, something he'd stuck in his binder? Something he'd picked up? Something he'd seen while they'd been driv—

Billboard.

Billboard rising just over the hill of the St. Brendan cemetery.

"Of course," he said, and Wheeler's gaze snapped back to him. The boy kept complaining, but neither of them paid attention. "Of course," he repeated, and he was so dizzy he was going to fall. "That's what she meant. Jo…and Joe. She said to visit the two Joes…"

xxxxx

She heard him coming early enough to slip her hand back under the restraint, toggle it back into place. He wouldn't look too closely, not at the beginning. He'd rant. Make her recite her lesson. He wouldn't get too close until he needed to hook her up to the pulley to dangle her over the drain.

And then…

xxxxx

Tumbling out of the house as fast as they'd come in, Wheeler barking orders into her cell and barely making it to the driver's seat before him, he tried to push her away but she slammed a glare in his face that sent him reeling backwards and she almost peeled out of the driveway without him—

_Hang on Eames hang on hang on hang on—_

xxxxx

"I love Bobby." (the words are gray and cold) "Bobby loves me." (the words are far away)"I need to let Bobby take care of me." (the words are getting closer) "I want to let Bobby take care of me." (Declan is getting closer) "I will let Bobby take care of me." (her hand is clenching tighter) "And then Bobby will be happy." (Declan is coming closer and she will only get one chance)

"I will make Bobby happy."

"Good girl." He leaned in, stroked her hair behind her ear. She could feel every dip and whirl of his fingerprints. She could feel his pulse and his breath. She could smell menthol and parsley and whiskey. "Good, sweet girl…"

She lunged.

xxxxx

"Goddamnit, Wheeler, drive!"

xxxxx

Elbow round his neck squeezing tight took him by surprise and he was wheezing popping gurgling his nails clawing at her arm which hurt but (don't let go don't let go don't let) and then he was scrabbling in his pockets for something (syringe) tried to swipe it at her but he couldn't get a grip on it dropped it and then he went limp but she kept squeezing—_give me the key give me the key give me the fucking key Declan _"Give me—" (her voice is sandpaper rasping, hurts) "the key!"

And his fingers shaking quaking trembling sticks as he pulls it out of his pockets and she sees his wrist tilt back like he's going to throw it so she releases round the neck and once more she _lunges_—

xxxxx

"I am driving, you want to drive any faster we're going to fucking crash—"

xxxxx

—snags the key, just on the tips of her fingers, and

(Declan on the floor, choking, hand on his throat, other hand reaching for the syringe)

undoes the shoulder restraints, her other arm (left) and there is almost no feeling but now she can lean up and the waist strap is next—

_Nicole swings and swings in the air, her outstretched arm pointed at Declan, his fingers closing on the syringe, he's rising and_

(it's stuck stuck the key won't turn and Declan)

LUNGES

—dodge, just barely and the needle blunts itself on steel and Gage's other hand comes up (scalpel gleaming bright) and LUNGE

_(it's a dance, strike and parry)_

slices through the edge of her abdomen (burning iron) and into steel but doesn't blunt, she head-butts him back and he stumbles, rises, but he dropped the scalpel on the table and now (slippery in her right hand) she swings—

Time slows till it is nothing but the dim light tracking on the silver shine of the blade as it carves through the air and Declan's throat is nothing solid and the blade carves through it like air and there is a fine red mist that flowers and sprays through the air like slow-motion rain.

He is so confused as he sinks to the floor, the blood flood-spilling between his fingertips, and her heart and lungs are filling up her ears so loud she can barely hear him say, "But I wanted you to be happy…"

xxxxx

CRASH! And the airbags exploded in their faces, the front of the SUV buckling broken glass-and-metal into the side of a red pickup truck, horns blaring—

xxxxx

It took him fifteen minutes to die, while she used the scalpel to pick the locks on her waist and ankle restraints. He wheezed and coughed and tried to rise, his hands slipping in his own blood.

He was dead by the time she got off the table. Her legs were weak and she slipped in his blood too.

Nicole laughed and laughed.

Eames blacked out for a while.

She came to, and checked for his pulse. None. She deepened the cut in his throat to be sure; next, she dug through his pockets for the other keys, the ones to the doors. She found them.

The first door opened easily. And the second. The air was fresher and Eames kept falling over and finally her knees buckled and she had to crawl to the third door. She blacked out again.

The third door had a keypad instead of a keyhole.

She crawl-stumbled back to Gage's corpse, searched every pocket. No pieces of paper. He had not written down the lock code anywhere.

She was trapped.


End file.
